US strikes Iran from south to north

US missiles struck targets across Iran, reaching as far as its Caspian coast, yesterday after President Donald Trump vowed “major military punishment” for Tehran and its Houthi allies in Yemen for extending the Middle East war to a second major shipping chokepoint, the mouth of the Red Sea.

The Iranian armed forces responded by firing at US bases in neighbouring Arab countries and warning people there that they may strike non-military buildings used by US personnel. The Iranian army said Trump’s threats only strengthened its resolve.

Iran-allied Houthis, who control northern and western Yemen, said this week they were imposing a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia. They struck two Saudi tankers on Thursday in the Red Sea’s Bab el-Mandeb strait, pushing oil prices seven percent higher to pierce the $100 per barrel level for the first time since May.

The attacks forced several other tankers to turn around and head north through the Suez Canal, potentially using a much longer and more expensive route to reach Asian customers by sailing around Africa. Shipping insurance costs through the southern Red Sea doubled for some companies on Thursday, sources said.

Still, half of the 18 ships exiting Bab el-Mandeb on Thursday were carrying crude oil, including two Chinese super-tankers. The number of tankers crossing through the Strait of Hormuz fell to just one on Thursday, the lowest since May 7.

Trump wrote on social media he would hold Iran accountable for any further attacks by the Houthi fighters, “and major military punishment will be inflicted upon Iran and, of course, the Houthis, themselves”.

He told Axios he was considering re-launching major combat operations in Iran and was close to a decision, reports Reuters.

Trump also said on social media that any damage to cargo ships would be paid for with Iranian money, referring to frozen Iranian assets held by the United States, but without specifying how.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi condemned Trump’s comments and said in a post on X yesterday morning that seizing another country’s assets to “pay for unrelated future claims is an incendiary precedent”.

Iranian state media reported that US missiles had struck Qeshm Island on the Strait of Hormuz.

The Iranian army said it had attacked US military equipment depots at Al-Adiri, latterly named Camp Buehring, in northern Kuwait, and the positions of US troops at Camp Arifjan and at Camp Doha, near Kuwait City.  Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had significantly damaged a surveillance tower used by the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain.

US airstrikes hit Piranshahr, in West Azerbaijan Province near Iran’s border with Iraq, damaging several vehicles, according to the province’s emergency services, quoted by Iranian media. Jordan’s military said it intercepted seven missiles and six drones launched by Iran.

US missiles also struck a Revolutionary Guards Navy headquarters in the Ziba Kenar area of the Caspian Sea province of Gilan, according to a security official in Gilan quoted by Iranian media. Gilan provincial authorities said US projectiles had also struck the port city of Bandar Anzali, according to the ILNA news agency.

Four people were killed and five injured in a US missile attack on the Iranian city of Ahvaz, state broadcaster IRIB said.

Meanwhile, the United Nations yesterday called for the safe evacuation and repatriation of some 6,000 sailors stuck in a “dire humanitarian and human rights crisis” in Hormuz.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk called for urgent action to remedy the plight of thousands of seafarers caught up in the Middle East war, his spokeswoman Shabia Mantoo said.