Overview
- U.S. forces struck and rendered five Iranian oil tankers inoperable, a move that U.S. Central Command said took place on Tuesday and followed repeated attempts by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to target a U.S. warship.
- Washington said the targeted vessels were tied to the IRGC’s financing network and that crews were ordered to abandon ship before the strikes; U.S. officials reported no American casualties from the earlier missile attempts.
- Iran responded by firing ballistic missiles toward the Al Azraq base in Jordan, and Jordanian air defences said they intercepted most of the incoming missiles with no reported casualties on the ground.
- The IRGC warned crews to evacuate tankers in Kuwaiti and Bahraini ports and threatened those ships with attack, raising direct danger to commercial mariners and port workers in the Gulf.
- The exchange has sharply reduced traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, pushed Brent crude near $100 a barrel, prompted new U.S. sanctions on Iran’s aviation sector, and increased the risk of wider spillover including Houthi strikes that recently wounded civilians in Saudi Arabia.