US strikes Iran for a third night as Tehran hits Gulf tankers and Washington reinstates a Hormuz blockade
The fighting between the United States and Iran escalated again as US Central Command carried out a third consecutive night of strikes, hitting military installations along Iran’s southern coast, including sites at Bushehr, Bandar Abbas, Jask and Chah Bahar. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps answered with a wave of counterstrikes across the Gulf, targeting US facilities in Kuwait and Bahrain and firing cruise missiles at shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
Two UAE-flagged oil tankers were hit, killing one Indian crew member and wounding eight others — the first reported seafarer death in the current round of attacks on commercial vessels. Washington said it would reinstate a blockade of Iran’s southern ports and terminals, a move that squeezes Tehran’s oil revenue but also raises the risk of further clashes at sea. Separately, Yemen’s Houthis said they launched missiles at Saudi Arabia in retaliation for strikes on Sanaa’s airport, widening the theater of the conflict.
The market response was immediate: Brent crude climbed to around $81 a barrel, its highest since mid-June, and traffic through the Strait of Hormuz — the chokepoint for roughly a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil — fell by about half over recent days. The combination of a US blockade and Iranian attacks on tankers puts insurers, shippers and Gulf states in the position of absorbing the cost of a conflict that both governments still say could end in a deal.