Iran has said it struck two tankers trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz under the escort of the US military as Donald Trump gathered his cabinet to discuss the stalling war and rising prices as midterm elections in the US loom.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Friday the “non-compliant oil tankers ... were struck and brought to a halt, while four other oil tankers quickly changed course and returned to their previous positions”.
The military body said the ships had tried to pass through the strait via an “undeclared route” and under US aerial escort.
Iran and the US have said ships should pass through the strait via two competing routes, with Iran bombing ships that take the southern route, close to the coast of Oman, and the US bombing ships that violate its blockade of Iranian ships and ports.
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The strait has been almost completely closed to traffic since Iran and the US returned to fighting two weeks ago, sending energy prices soaring. On Thursday, the price of crude oil pushed past $90 a barrel when the US struck Iran in retaliation for its targeting of US bases in Jordan.
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Fighting continued on Friday, with the Kuwaiti defence ministry reporting that it had shot down Iranian drones targeting “vital and military facilities” without any casualties.
In Lebanon, Israeli military carried out a huge detonation overnight near the ancient Beaufort Castle. It said it was targeting Hizbullah tunnels and infrastructure. The explosion was heard across south Lebanon and covered nearby towns in ash, while photos showed the affected area levelled by the force of the blast.
Lebanese officials accused Israel of violating the ceasefire by carrying out the detonation. The Israeli military said it was ensuring the security of its northern residents.
Trump has tried to open the Strait of Hormuz by force, but increasingly intense US strikes on Iran have yielded few results. The price of gas and groceries remain high in the US as a result of the energy disruption, complicating Republicans’ chances at the ballot box in November’s midterm elections.
On Friday, Trump brought his cabinet together at the Camp David retreat in Maryland to try to chart a path forward for the war. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a briefing last week that the cabinet meeting would be “a lot of fun and something different for the cabinet to experience together”.
Top of the agenda was the Iran war, which Trump promised would last a few weeks but has now dragged on for five months. A Reuters-Ipsos poll this week found that one in three Americans support the war, the lowest polling since the war began.
Earlier, in a statement to Fox News on Friday, Trump said the war was going well. “All you can do is keep winning, then eventually something will happen,” he said, without giving details.
Support in Congress is also waning, with the US Senate narrowly rejecting a symbolic vote to express disapproval of the war. The war powers resolution asking the president to stop the war failed in a 49-50 vote. Inflation caused by the war is a boon for Democrats, who are hoping to wrest control of the house from Republicans.
Energy companies have posted record profits as a result of the conflict, with ExxonMobil’s profits doubling and Chevron reporting more than five times its profits in the same period last year.
Even as Iran and its Houthi allies have fired on tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb, the Suez Canal and Sumed pipeline continued to offer safe, northbound routes for Saudi energy exports via the Red Sea.
No one has claimed responsibility for what Egypt’s cabinet said on Thursday was an unidentified drone that caused a fire on two vessels a day earlier at the Mediterranean port of Damietta, which is more than 160km west of the canal by road.
Iran has denied any involvement in the Damietta strike. – Guardian. Additional reporting: Reuters
