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U.S. Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, who commands the American military in the region, said his forces have hit more than 10,000 targets since Israel and the U.S. started the war Feb. 28, destroying 92% of Iran’s largest ships and more than two-thirds of the country’s missile, drone and naval production facilities.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe\u2019re not done yet,\u201d said Cooper, who heads the U.S. Central Command, in a video message. \u201cWe are on a path to completely eliminate Iran\u2019s wider military apparatus.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iran seen as operating Strait of Hormuz as \u2018de facto toll booth\u2019<\/p>\n
With its stranglehold on traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which leads from the Persian Gulf toward the open ocean, Iran has been blocking ships it perceives as linked to the U.S. and Israeli war effort, but letting through a trickle of others.<\/p>\n
The Fars and Tasnim news agencies, both close to Iran\u2019s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, quoted lawmaker Mohammadreza Rezaei Kouchi as saying that parliament was working to formalize the process of charging fees to let ships pass.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe provide its security, and it is natural that ships and oil tankers should pay such fees,\u201d he was quoted as saying.<\/p>\n
Lloyd\u2019s List Intelligence called it a \u201cde facto \u2018toll booth\u2019 regime.\u201d<\/p>\n
The shipping intelligence firm said vessels have to provide manifests, crew details and their destination to Iran\u2019s Guard for sanctions screening, cargo alignment checks that currently prioritizes oil over all other commodities, and for what is described as \u2018geopolitical vetting.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile not all ships are paying a direct toll, at least two vessels have and the payment is settled in yuan,\u201d Lloyd\u2019s List said, referring to China\u2019s currency.<\/p>\n
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Iran’s grip on the strait and relentless attacks on Gulf regional energy infrastructure has sent oil prices skyrocketing and concerns of a global energy crisis surging. Brent crude, the international standard, traded at US$104 early Thursday, up more than 40% from the day the war started.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo make it crystal clear, this war is a catastrophe for world’s economies,\u201d German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters during a vist to Australia.<\/p>\n
US maintains negotiations are ongoing but Iran says there are no talks<\/p>\n
Using Pakistan as an intermediary, Washington has delivered to Iran a 15-point ceasefire proposal, which includes the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
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Trump, speaking at a fundraiser Wednesday night in Washington, insisted that Iran still wants to cut a deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are negotiating, by the way, and they want to make a deal so badly, but they\u2019re afraid to say it because they figure they\u2019ll be killed by their own people,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in an interview on state TV, however, that his government has not engaged in talks to end the war, \u201cand we do not plan on any negotiations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Araghchi said the U.S. had tried to send messages to Iran through other nations, \u201cbut that is not a conversation nor a negotiation.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Press TV, the English-language broadcaster on Iranian state television, said Iran has its own five-point proposal, which includes \u201csovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.\u201d<\/p>\n
A wave of Israeli airstrikes hits as Iran fires on Gulf neighbors<\/p>\n
Israel said it carried out a wave of attacks early on Thursday targeting Iranian infrastructure, and air defenses were heard in Tehran, while heavy strikes were also reported around Isfahan, a city some 330 kilometers (205 miles) south of the Iranian capital.<\/p>\n
Ifahan is home to a major Iranian air base and other military sites, as well as one of the nuclear sites bombed by the U.S. during the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June.<\/p>\n
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Sirens sounded very early on Thursday morning in parts of Tel Aviv and cities in central Israel. Rescue workers said two people were injured in a blast in Kfar Qasim.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry said it intercepted multiple drones over its oil-rich Eastern Province, the United Arab Emirates’ air defenses also worked to intercept incoming fire, and Bahrain reported extinguishing a blaze in a neighborhood that is home to the Bahrain International Airport.<\/p>\n
Since the war began, more than 1,500 people have been killed in Iran, its Health Ministry says. Twenty people have been killed in Israel; two Israeli soldiers have also been killed in Lebanon. At least 13 U.S. military members have been killed. More than a dozen civilians in the occupied West Bank and Gulf Arab states have also died.<\/p>\n
Nearly 1,100 people have died in Lebanon, authorities said. In Iraq, where Iranian-supported militant groups have entered the conflict, 80 members of the security forces have been killed.<\/p>\n
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Rising reported from Bangkok. Associated Press writers Rod McGuirk in Melbourne, Australia, and Giovanna Dell’Orto in Miami, Florida, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pro-government supporters wave national flags as one of them holds a picture of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[211,11163,2290,38,34,16307,37,49,294,3284,3285,39,3282,3281,3283,3286,101],"class_list":{"0":"post-36657","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-persian-gulf","8":"tag-abbas-araghchi","9":"tag-boris-pistorius","10":"tag-brad-cooper","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-iran","13":"tag-iran-us-israel-trump-lebanon-march-26-2026","14":"tag-israel","15":"tag-middle-east","16":"tag-nicolas-maduro","17":"tag-package-100024-ap-online","18":"tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","19":"tag-persian-gulf","20":"tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","21":"tag-product-31998-ap-online-national-news","22":"tag-product-32505-ap-online-middle-east-news","23":"tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories","24":"tag-strait-of-hormuz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116294190643433898","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36657","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=36657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}