The US launched new air strikes on Iranian targets yesterday, in a move that threatened to reignite the six-month-old conflict that has driven global energy prices higher and weighed heavily on President Donald Trump’s popularity at home.
The strikes followed a weekend exchange of fire – the first since July – and after two tankers were hit on Monday leaving the Strait of Hormuz, the global oil supply waterway that Iran has effectively closed to shipping.
Trump said on his social media channel that if Iran retaliated for the attack, ‘they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level’.
He said the US military was striking targets near the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for Iran’s ‘failed attempt at adding sea mines’ to the Strait and shooting eight missiles at a US military base in Jordan.
Brent crude futures, already up two per cent on the day, jumped by almost 2pc more on the reports.
Tehran remained defiant, warning that it would prevent oil being exported from the Gulf, despite a threat by Trump to hit Iran ‘hard’ in response to the renewed Iranian strikes, and a warning from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that Washington was about to impose new sanctions.
Trump has repeatedly vowed over the course of the conflict to unleash new attacks on Iran but has not always followed through.
Bessent last week said he would significantly escalate economic sanctions against countries that do business with Iran, though Washington has not revealed specifics about that plan.
“Today at 12pm ET (1600 GMT), US forces began striking Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets in Iran,” US Central Command posted on X.
“The strikes follow recent attempted attacks by the IRGC against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and against American service members deployed to the region.”
Iran’s state broadcaster said there had been reports of explosions on Iran’s Qeshm Island, on the northern side of the strait.
The state-linked news agency Nour News said there had been reports of explosions in the port city of Bandar Abbas and in Chabahar, a port on the southern coast.
The state news agency Irna also reported the sound of explosions in Jask and Sirik, and state media said US forces attacked a civilian airport in Jiroft in southern Iran.
The deputy governor of Iran’s Sirik said four people died in a US strike that hit a wedding ceremony.
The US Embassy in Qatar urged Americans currently in the Middle East to exercise ‘heightened vigilance and be aware of potential flight cancellations, airspace closures, and travel disruptions”.
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