US strikes Iran for 9th day; IRGC say Hormuz to remain unsafe as long as American 'aggression' continues

US forces hit Iran for a ninth consecutive day on Monday as concerns grew over shipping through the Strait of Hormuz after Iran said two oil tankers had exploded and been immobilised, adding that the waterway would remain unsafe as long as US “aggression” in the region continued.

In a statement, US Central Command said it targeted “Iranian military command centres, air defense and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and communications networks to further diminish Iran’s ability to attack commercial vessels and civilian mariners transiting the Strait of Hormuz”.

The strikes are part of an escalating cycle of attacks between the US and Iran after an interim ceasefire agreement signed a month ago unravelled, deepening a struggle for control over the Strait of Hormuz that has disrupted energy supplies and stoked fears of global inflation.

Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency, citing its own reporters, said US missiles struck several Iranian cities early on Monday.

Explosions were heard in Tabriz, Chabahar, Konarak, Bandar Mahshahr and Bandar Imam Khomeini, according to Tasnim.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States would continue to target Iran while it attacked global commercial shipping.

“The Strait of Hormuz is an international waterway, and they continue to launch against the ships in that international waterway,” Rubio said.

“As long as Iran insists on controlling an international waterway, we’re gonna have to respond to that. The US always remains open to a diplomatic solution,” he said.

Iran says attacked US bases, oil tankers damaged

For its part, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced a surprise strike against “the enemy’s special operations headquarters in Syria’s Al-Tanf area”.

The Revolutionary Guards also said they targeted US aircraft at Jordan’s Aqaba airport with ballistic missiles.

Iran earlier conducted a drone attack on US military assets and equipment at Kuwait’s Al-Adiri camp and Ali Al Salem Air Base, Iranian state TV reported early on Sunday.

Kuwait’s government said a desalination plant was attacked for the second day running, causing a fire, in what it called a direct strike on vital civilian infrastructure.

Concerns about the flow of energy supplies through the Strait of Hormuz have persisted since the United States and Iran resumed open hostilities after accusing each other of repeatedly violating a ceasefire deal.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said late on Sunday that it received a report that a vessel was on fire not far from the Omani coast, although it had not verified a cause.

The Revolutionary Guards said on Monday that two oil tankers had exploded and been immobilised after attempting to transit what it described as an unsafe southern route through Hormuz, alleging the vessels had been encouraged by the US military to use the passage.

The statement gave no details on the vessels’ names, flags, crews or any casualties.

The Guards said the waterway would remain unsafe as long as US “aggression” in the region continued, warning that “this passage will not be safe for the transit of petrochemical products, nor even a single drop of oil and gas”.

Four vessels made the transit through Hormuz on Sunday, down from eight the previous day, LSEG data showed. At least three oil products’ tankers and one Very Large Crude Carrier have entered the strait since Friday to load oil, the data showed.

Oil prices rose 2 per cent to more than $90 a barrel on Monday.

In the latest American casualty reported in the war, the US military said on Sunday that a service member was killed on Saturday in northern Iraq, where the US has military bases, during a controlled detonation of what Central Command called unexploded ordnance on a downed Iranian attack drone.

The US military said earlier that two service personnel died in Jordan and that a third was missing in action. On Sunday, Central Command said that “unidentified remains” had been found at the site of Friday’s attack and that “an examination process to verify the remains is ongoing.”

The latest casualty announcements brought the total number of US military personnel killed since the war began to 17, with more than 420 others wounded. ...