The US launched strikes on Iran early on Tuesday morning, hours after President Donald Trump said Washington is “reinstating” a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz.
Mr Trump separately suggested the United States will charge other ships for safe passage, upending hundreds of years of American policy supporting freedom of navigation across the globe.
Iran responded with attacks targeting Bahrain, Jordan and two tankers associated with the United Arab Emirates travelling through the strait, killing one mariner and wounding eight others. The Emirates threatened to retaliate against Iran, potentially drawing the nation that is home to Abu Dhabi and Dubai back into fighting with Tehran.
The attacks come as Iran and the US vie for control of the strait through which a fifth of all traded crude oil and natural gas once passed in peacetime. The price of benchmark Brent crude oil rose to a one-month high of more than 84 dollars (£63) in trading early on Tuesday, still well below the nearly 120 dollars (£90) reached at the height of the war but threatening to make costs everywhere higher.
The US military’s Central Command said it struck areas around Abu Musa, Bandar Abbas, Bushehr, Chahbahar, Jask and Konarak, targeting Iranian “coastal defense systems, missile and drone sites and maritime capabilities”. Iran acknowledged strikes around those areas, but provided no immediate casualty or damage assessments.
“These strikes will continue imposing a heavy cost on Iranian forces and degrade their ability to attack innocent civilians and commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz,” the US military said.
Moments after the military announced the new strikes, Mr Trump called it “another major attack”.
“We’re hitting them very hard. And it’ll continue, and we’ll see what happens,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “We’re knocking out all of their offensive capability and we’re controlling the straits. We’re putting the blockade back.”
Mr Trump also provided new details on his suggestion that the US will charge tolls for ships going through the strait, an about-face after previously saying that it would not.
“We’re protecting a very rich portion of the world,” he said. “We’re spending money. And so, what we’ve done is, we are going to be reimbursed for protection.”
It is a change in US policy that, until now, said the strait should remain open to all without tolls — as it was before the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28.
Any attempt by the US or Iran to charge fees would violate global norms on freedom of navigation and raise tensions, likely causing further economic disruption far beyond the region.
The United Arab Emirates’ Defence Ministry said early on Tuesday that Iran attacked two tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, killing one mariner and wounding eight others.
The Emirati Defence Ministry said Iran launched two cruise missiles at the tankers Mombasa and Al Bahiyah.
The attacks set both tankers ablaze, though the fires were extinguished.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard claimed the attack on the tankers, saying the vessels “ignored repeated warnings”.
“They chose to pass through a minefield and were subsequently targeted and disabled,” the Guard said.
Bahrain also came under renewed attack early on Tuesday morning as Iran retaliated over the latest round of US airstrikes. Bahrain sounded its missile alert sirens three times, urging the public to seek shelter. There was no word on any damage or casualties from the attack.
Jordan’s military said it intercepted four missiles from Iran, according to a statement carried by the kingdom’s state-run Petra news agency.
Exchanges of fire in recent days had already cast further doubt on the interim peace deal. Washington had lifted a blockade it imposed in mid-April as part of that deal, which also called for the strait to be fully reopened.
“We are reinstating the THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE,” Mr Trump said on social media. “All other countries will have fair and open use of the Strait.”
The US military said it will resume its blockade of Iranian ports at midnight on Wednesday local time in Dubai (9pm BST).
