DUBAI, Sept 5 (Reuters) – U.S. forces struck three Iranian oil tankers on Saturday, U.S. Central Command said, including one off the coast of Kharg Island, near Iran’s key oil export hub.<\/p>\n
The strikes were carried out \u200cafter Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched ballistic missiles at two U.S. Navy ships, Central Command said.<\/p>\n
“Let the message \u200cto the IRGC be clear: If you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose an even higher economic cost \u2014 taking out three of \u200byours,” said Admiral Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command.<\/p>\n
Iran responded by threatening intensified strikes against U.S. military vessels in the region.<\/p>\n
“If the evil, insecurity and harassment of Iranian ships and the naval blockade of Iran continue, the strikes of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s armed forces against U.S. military vessels in the region will be more severe than before and there \u200cis a possibility of their expansion,” Iran’s \u2060military command said in a post on state media.<\/p>\n
Tasnim, the semi-official Iranian news agency, reported earlier that four U.S. missiles hit a tanker in the area of Kharg’s anchorage. Tasnim quoted \u2060local sources as saying there were no casualties and the tanker’s crew was being evacuated.<\/p>\n
No American personnel were harmed, Central Command said.<\/p>\n
The exchange of attacks followed an escalation in the past week that threatens to deepen a conflict that has dragged on \u200bsince \u200bthe U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran in February, disrupting \u200bglobal energy supplies and drawing opposition from a \u200cmajority of Americans before congressional elections in November.<\/p>\n
TRUMP’S THREATS OVER KHARG ISLAND<\/p>\n
U.S. President Donald Trump said on August 31 in a one-line social media post accompanied by an AI-generated video that Kharg Island was being “blown to smithereens”. Iranian authorities have vowed a strong response if Kharg is attacked.<\/p>\n
Iran is the third-largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and exported 90% of its crude via Kharg Island before the war, but flows have been disrupted since \u200ca U.S. blockade of Iranian oil exports began in mid-April.<\/p>\n
Trump said \u200bon June 11 that he wanted to take over Kharg Island, but \u200bthen said a threatened U.S. military operation there \u200bwas off the table for now, days before Tehran and Washington signed an interim agreement \u200caimed at ending the war on June 17.<\/p>\n
A U.S. \u200battack on Kharg would further \u200bpressure Iran’s oil industry and its wider economy, which is already reeling from the U.S. naval blockade.<\/p>\n
The U.S. imposed its blockade on Iranian ports after Iran effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, an important waterway that \u200bcarried one-fifth of the world’s oil \u200csupply before the war.<\/p>\n
Brent crude futures closed at their highest level since July 24 on Friday, at $96.28 \u200ba barrel, as tensions in the Middle East drive global supply concerns.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Writing \u200bby Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Sharon Singleton and Timothy Heritage)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUBAI, Sept 5 (Reuters) – U.S. forces struck three Iranian oil tankers on Saturday, U.S. Central Command said,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[2656,34,361,46,8515,2601,1527,683,2174],"class_list":["post-279472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iran","tag-central-command","tag-iran","tag-iranian","tag-islamic-revolutionary-guard-corps","tag-kharg","tag-kharg-island","tag-u-s-navy","tag-u-s","tag-u-s-central-command"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117219950870608205","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}