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CAIRO — The U.S. military announced the 13th night of strikes Thursday against Iran as clashes escalate over shipping routes, saying it targeted drone facilities, coastal surveillance sites and more.
A short time later, Iranian state media reported explosions along the strait in Qeshm and Bandar Abbas, where two people were reportedly injured.
Blasts were also reported on Qeshm Island, home to stores of naval assets including drone boats that Iran can use to attack vessels on the Strait of Hormuz, as well as to the northwest near Andimeshk, Omidiyeh and Firuzabad. Four people were killed and five wounded in a U.S. missile attack on the outskirts of Ahvaz on the Karun River, Iranian state media said.
U.S. Central Command said the latest attacks concluded shortly before 5 a.m. local time. The strikes were designed to “further degrade Iran’s ability to threaten civilian mariners and commercial vessels transiting regional waters” as the Americans push to regain control over the Strait of Hormuz and restore the flow of international shipping.
Earlier Thursday, Trump threatened to step up strikes on Iran and said he’ll hold the country responsible for any further attacks by the Yemen-based Houthis on Red Sea ships, as the widening Middle East war puts new strain on global energy supplies.
Trump told Axios in an interview that he’s considering a “massive attack” and is “close to making a decision” on it, the news agency reported. The president also posted that the U.S. will inflict “major military punishment” on both Iran and the Houthis in the event of more strikes on shipping from Yemen.
“If they do this again, the U.S. will hold Iran responsible, in that the Houthis are a Surrogate and/or Proxy of Iran, and major military punishment will be inflicted upon Iran and, of course, the Houthis, themselves,” Trump wrote on social media.
Trump also said on social media that sanctioned Iranian funds in the possession of the U.S. will cover the expense of fixing vessels damaged in the war.
“Please let this statement serve to represent, until further notice, that from this point forth, any and all damages done to Ships, Cargo, or anything related thereto, will be paid for by Iranian Money that the United States has in its possession, and controls,” Trump said.
It was unclear what legal mechanisms Trump would use to access and spend the funds, but he said that doing so would be “the fair and equitable thing to do.”
The Houthis earlier claimed they had hit two Saudi Arabian oil tankers, opening a new front in the conflict that’s rattled commodity and bond markets. There were no reports of casualties. Brent crude climbed above $100 a barrel on Thursday for the first time in almost two months.
It was the Houthis’ first reported attack on a vessel since they announced a blockade of Saudi-linked shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait earlier this week in retaliation for the kingdom’s blockade on Yemen and a recent attack on the international airport in Yemen’s rebel-held capital, Sanaa.
Saudi Arabia has diverted millions of barrels a day of oil exports to Yanbu via an overland pipeline as the war has bottled up the Persian Gulf.
The Houthi threat “raises questions on the viability of this route,” Lloyd’s List Intelligence said in slides accompanying an online webinar Thursday.
IRANI COLLUSION REPORTED
In another development Thursday, Reuters cited four unnamed sources as saying Iran flew Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders, military advisers and missile- and drone-related equipment into Yemen this month, suggesting Tehran is seeking to strengthen the ability of its Houthi allies to threaten Red Sea shipping.
Four sources familiar with the matter, including two Iranian sources, Yemen’s information minister and a regional security analyst, said Iran transferred the Revolutionary Guard personnel and military-related equipment on a flight from Tehran to Yemen on July 13, a development that has not been previously reported.
The two Iranian sources told Reuters that between 10 and 21 Revolutionary Guard personnel, including senior commanders, were on the Mahan Air flight.
The plane was originally bound for the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa, but diverted to the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah after the airport came under attack by the Saudi-backed Yemeni government.
“The IRGC commanders travelled there to support Houthi operations and provide training on new missile systems,” one of the sources said, adding that Iran also sent gold on the aircraft to fund Houthi activities.
Abdel Rahman al-Ahnomi, a Houthi media official who said he was aboard the plane, described the claims that Iran sent military experts to Yemen as “lies and fabrications,” adding that all passengers aboard the plane were civilians.
The Houthis have previously denied being an Iranian proxy and said they develop their own weapons.
The war that began when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in February is in a new phase of escalation after the effective collapse of a truce signed last month. While hostilities remain less intense than they were at the conflict’s height, they’re ratcheting back up after 12 straight days of tit-for-tat strikes as both sides vow to match any move by the other.
Iran warned it will retaliate against infrastructure in the region, including energy facilities, if Trump follows through on his threat earlier this week to destroy one bridge or power plant each time Tehran shoots at vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
Traffic through the crucial waterway, which before the war carried about one-fifth of global energy supplies, has slowed to a trickle. Now Houthi involvement in the conflict threatens to close another maritime chokepoint. Some vessels are already avoiding the Bab el-Mandeb strait at the mouth of the Red Sea.
“Tehran and the Houthis are showing they still have room to climb on the escalation ladder,” Dina Esfandiary and Becca Wasser wrote for Bloomberg Economics. “But as escalation creep settles in, finding an off-ramp becomes harder.”
Both sides have been dismissive of a near-term return to the negotiating table, even as the risks to energy markets and the world economy mount.
“As long as the United States fails to understand that the only way forward is to respect the Iranian people and Iran’s national interests, there is no prospect of progress on this front,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told state TV.
CALL FOR CALM
Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi of Iraq, which has close ties to both the U.S. and Iran, was in Tehran on Thursday to call for peace and dialogue, and he promised not to allow Iraqi territory to be used for attacks on Iran, his office said. Al-Zaidi met with Trump earlier this month in Washington.
An Arab diplomat said Gulf states are increasingly pessimistic about finding an off-ramp. The diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation, said regional countries like Pakistan and Turkey continue to push for de-escalation.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Thursday that the region is being pulled “into an ever-widening circle of confrontation” with one crisis feeding another and every escalation triggering the next.
“Diplomacy is the only way forward,” Guterres told the U.N. Security Council. He called for Pakistan’s efforts to mediate an end to the war to be strengthened.
Iran’s health ministry said Thursday that 55 people have been killed and 629 have been wounded since renewed U.S. airstrikes began on June 27.
Jordan said its military had intercepted three missiles early Thursday, with a fourth falling in an empty area, while six drones were intercepted Wednesday night. Sirens sounded in Bahrain as authorities urged people to remain calm and seek shelter.
Kuwait’s military said that drones had attacked its border crossing with Iraq, causing damage but no casualties. That attack may have been in response to the U.S. strike on the Iran-Iraq border crossing.
‘MORE OF THE SAME’
Trump last month cited the risk of a global economic crash as a key reason why he agreed to a truce. But he said on Thursday that Iran is “not ready yet” for a deal and signaled U.S. attacks will continue. “They need more of the same,” he said.
The recent escalation has seen the U.S. bombing Iran for 12 consecutive days, saying it’s targeting missile and air-defense facilities. Iranian state TV reported an attack late Wednesday on the passenger terminal at the Shalamcheh border crossing with Iraq, killing two people. Iran has fired at U.S. bases and military sites in Kuwait and Jordan.
Attacks from Yemen threaten to push energy prices higher still because the Red Sea has emerged as a vital workaround for crude exports, particularly from Saudi Arabia, with Hormuz largely shut. The group has sent emails to shipowners warning them not to go to the kingdom’s ports.
The Houthis are part of the so-called Axis of Resistance, a loose alliance of militias funded and trained by Iran but operating with a degree of autonomy. They control much of the country’s populated areas including the capital Sanaa and the Red Sea port of Hodeida. The Saudis fought for several years to oust the group, and the kingdom was blamed by the Houthis for an attack on Sanaa’s airport last week that helped trigger the latest clashes.
The Yemeni group has used its strategic location to disrupt Red Sea shipping before, carrying out drone and missile attacks starting in 2023 in response to Israel’s assault against Hamas in Gaza. Trump ordered a bombing campaign against the Houthis last year aimed at restoring maritime traffic, then called it off after two months when a partial truce was agreed.
Information for this article was contributed by Courtney Subramanian, Eltaf Najafizada, Iain Marlow, Jeff Mason and Meghashyam Mali of Bloomberg News; Elena Becatoros, Fatma Khaled, Collin Binkley, Munir Ahmed, Bassem Mroue, Michelle L. Price, Jim Gomez, Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Matthew Lee of The Associated Press; and Maggie Michael and Parisa Hafezi of Reuters.
