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The US has fired on an oil tanker attempting to reach Kharg Island in the strait of Hormuz as part of its blockade on Iranian ports, as Tehran came under attack for the first time in this latest round of strikes.
The US said on Thursday morning it had disabled an unladen oil tanker, during a fifth day of strikes, firing Hellfire missiles into the ship’s smokestack after it ignored multiple warnings.
On Wednesday evening, the US targeted coastal defences and missile sites, hours after a separate round of strikes that hit cruise missile storage and launch sites on Iran’s Greater Tunb Island in the morning.
The US also hit targets further north, with state media reporting strikes on the country’s capital, Tehran, and reports of air defences being heard throughout the city early on Thursday.
Iran responded with attacks targeting Bahrain and Kuwait. There was no immediate word on damage or casualties. Iranian officials say the recent days of US strikes have killed more than ۳۵ people and wounded more than ۳۰۰ others.
The escalating waves of attacks come days after the ceasefire between the two sides appeared to have entirely collapsed, with fears of a return to full-scale war.
The US military central command said late on Wednesday that the latest round of strikes were targeting Iranian military capabilities “used to threaten vessels freely transiting through the strait of Hormuz, an international waterway vital to global commerce.”
Iranian media said four locations around the city of Ahvaz had come, along with Bandar Abbas, the principal port city on the strait of Hormuz. Missiles also hit near Sirik and Qeshm in southern Iran.
The tit-for-tat attacks between the US and Iran have intensified since Tehran said it was closing the strait on Saturday, once again imperilling the movement of maritime traffic through the vital waterway which carried about a fifth of global oil and gas supplies before the war.
The US on Wednesday reimposed its naval blockade on Iran. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) responded by threatening to halt all energy exports from the Middle East, saying “regional energy exports are either shared by all or denied to all.”
Oil prices have continued to tick up higher throughout the latest waves of escalation, with the price for Brent crude oil, the international standard, trading at above $۸۵ a barrel on Wednesday – more than ۱۵% higher than the price before the war, but still well below the nearly $۱۲۰ reached at the height of the conflict.
Donald Trump on Wednesday again claimed that Iran would be “defeated soon”. Speaking in Pennsylvania the US president claimed the Iranians want to “settle so badly”. On Tuesday, Trump said US negotiators had been in touch with their Iranian counterparts to tell them “you better make a deal”.
Trump has suggested the US could widen attacks against Iran to force open the strait, with the US president warning that he would hit “Pickaxe Mountain” – a fortified underground facility linked to Iran’s disputed nuclear programme.
Weeks after the US and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) aimed at ending the war and restarting talks on the country’s nuclear programme, Tehran’s chief negotiator warned that the MOU could only have meaning if its “clauses are valid and being implemented,” suggesting further negotiations are being compromised by the recent wave of attacks.
“If Iran is not to derive any benefit from the memorandum of understanding, we have no reason to adhere,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a statement.
Ghalibaf also said his country’s security depended on maintaining what he called “Iranian arrangements” in the strait, adding that Iran was in an “essential and existential war with America”.
Iran’s military spokesperson has said that the only way to reopen the strait of Hormuz was for the US to comply with the MOU. Experts have said that a lack of clarity in the terms of the MOU, and the inclusion of language that suggested Iran could take responsibility of the “safe passage of ships” in the strait, have contributed to the confusion that has characterised the Trump administration’s strategy over recent weeks.
Despite the ratcheting hostilities, Trump late on Wednesday was keen to declare a possible sign of goodwill between the two sides. The US president said Iran had allowed an American who was “wrongfully detained” in late ۲۰۲۴ to leave the country.
“The United States of America appreciates this gesture of goodwill by Iran,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Human rights attorney Jared Genser identified the released American as Dena Karari, who had been prevented from leaving Iran since December ۲۰۲۴. “Dena is now safe and traveling back to the United States,” Genser wrote on social media, thanking Trump for his efforts to free her.
