U.S. military renews strikes on Iran while tankers come under attack in Strait of Hormuz

(Reuters)

CAIRO/DUBAI/WASHINGTON, July 13 – The U.S. military carried out a third consecutive night of strikes against Iran on Monday as President Donald Trump reinstated a blockade of Iranian shipping and proposed charging a ​20% fee to guard the Strait of Hormuz.

U.S. Central Command said it began strikes at Trump’s direction just after the U.S. president told the “Hugh Hewitt Show” that Iran would be hit “very hard tonight, and we’re going to ‌hit them hard tomorrow. And there’s not a damn thing they can do about it.” He later told reporters at the White House that the U.S. was attacking Iranian capabilities in the strait.

The UAE Ministry of Defense later said Iranian cruise missiles struck two Emirati oil tankers, the Mombasa and Al Bahiyah, while transiting the southern lane of the strait in Omani territorial waters, wounding one crew member and injuring eight others.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency said a tanker had been hit by an unknown projectile while travelling 40 nautical miles northeast of Oman’s Qalhat and that all crew were safe.

Reuters could not immediately verify ​whether the UKMTO report referred to the same incident as the one reported by the UAE Ministry of Defense. Iran has not commented on the latest attacks.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said two “offending” supertankers had been hit and disabled in the ​strait after ignoring repeated warnings and turning off navigation systems, Iranian media reported.

The IRGC’s statement did not name the vessels or say whether they were the same tankers cited by the UAE ministry. ⁠But it accused the U.S. of “inciting vessels to use an illegal route” and warned that cooperation with the “aggressor enemy” would result in damage, delays in reopening the waterway and a global energy crisis.

Bahrain’s air defense systems intercepted and destroyed Iranian aerial attacks over the kingdom, ​Nabeel Alhamer, media adviser to Bahrain’s king, said in posts on X.

“The Hormuz Strait is OPEN, and will remain OPEN, with or without Iran. We are reinstating THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE,” Trump had said earlier on Monday on Truth Social.