The United States struck multiple Iranian oil tankers on Tuesday in response to attempted missile attacks on a Navy warship, a U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the operation. The strikes are the latest exchange in a war between Washington and Tehran now in its seventh month.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Navy responded by warning crews of oil tankers near ports in Kuwait and Bahrain to abandon their vessels immediately. The warning, carried on Iranian state television, said the ships could be targeted whether at anchor or docked. It accused Kuwait and Bahrain of hosting U.S. forces and assisting the strikes.
The confrontation follows a similar exchange on Saturday. The U.S. military said it had hit three Iranian oil tankers after Navy warships were targeted with ballistic missiles, warning it would “if necessary, destroy Iran’s limited and exposed oil fleet.” Tehran later said it planned to declare a new exclusion zone near the Strait of Hormuz for vessels intending to transit.
A separate dispute unfolded over an underwater drone. Iranian forces claimed to have seized an American unmanned submersible in the strait. The U.S. military said the device had malfunctioned more than a day earlier. Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, a U.S. Central Command spokesperson, said the drone was surveilling regional waters and was not collecting sensitive data.
The tit-for-tat strikes are part of a combined economic and military approach by President Donald Trump. On Tuesday his administration imposed sanctions on additional parts of Iran’s aviation industry, targeting more than two dozen commercial and private airlines along with foreign cargo service providers. The move aims to cut Tehran off from its remaining trading partners.
Trump has said oil prices will fall quickly once the war ends. The Strait of Hormuz, through which a large share of the world’s seaborne crude passes, has been a focal point of the conflict for months. Earlier disruptions included a period when the waterway was closed to shipping as talks broke down.
Both sides have edged repeatedly between confrontation and negotiation over more than six months of fighting. No new round of talks has been publicly scheduled.