US resumes attacks after Iran hits Bahrain, oil tankers in Strait of Hormuz

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - Dubai — The United States has llaunched its third consecutive night of strikes on Iran hours after Donald Trump said Washington would reinstate a maritime blockade on the country and, in an apparently policy reversal, charge ships for safe passage.

Iran responded with attacks targeting Bahrain and two oil supertankers associated with the United Arab Emirates traveling through the strait, killing one mariner and wounding eight others. The UAE threatened to retaliate, potentially drawing the nation back into fighting with Iran.

Iran's Islamic Republic Guard Corps (IRGC) said it has launched missile and drone attacks on the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain.

It said the strikes set fire to fuel depots at the base and hit and destroyed a Patriot radar, as well as the fleet’s air control radar, a C-RAM early warning radar system and the control and monitoring centre for unmanned surface vessels.

“The retaliatory operation continues,” the statement added.

The attacks come as Iran and the US both vie for control of the strait through which a fifth of all crude oil and natural gas passed in peacetime.

Trump suggested Washington will charge ships for safe passage through the strait, upending hundreds of years of American policy supporting freedom of navigation across the globe.US Central Command announced in a social media post that another round of strikes against Iran completed at 10:15 p.m. ET. (3.15 a.m. Tuesday UTC)

“During the five-hour mission, US forces successfully struck military targets across Iran including Bushehr, Chah Bahar, Jask, Konarak, Abu Musa, and Bandar Abbas to further degrade Iran’s ability to attack commercial shipping,” Centcom wrote on X, adding US “forces employed precision munitions against Iranian coastal defense systems, missile and drone sites, and maritime capabilities.”

Moments after the military announced the new strikes, Trump called it “another major attack.”

“We’re hitting them very hard. And it’ll continue, and we’ll see what happens,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “We’re knocking out all of their offensive capability and we’re controlling the straits. We’re putting the blockade back.”

“These strikes will continue imposing a heavy cost on Iranian forces and degrade their ability to attack innocent civilians and commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz,” the US military said.

Trump also provided new details on his administration doing an about-face and suggesting it will charge tolls for ships going through the strait, after previously suggesting that it wouldn’t.

“We’re protecting a very rich portion of the world,” he said. “We’re spending money. And so, what we’ve done is, we are going to be reimbursed for protection.”

It’s a change in US policy that, until now, said the strait should remain open to all without tolls — as it was before the US and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28.

Any attempt by the US or Iran to charge fees would violate global norms on freedom of navigation and raise tensions, likely causing further economic disruption far beyond the region.

The UAE Defense Ministry said early Tuesday that Iran attacked two tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, killing one mariner and wounding eight others.

The ministry said Iran launched two cruise missiles at the tankers Mombasa and Al Bahiyah, setting both tankers ablaze, though the fires were extinguished.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed the attack on the tankers, saying the vessels “ignored repeated warnings.”

“They chose to pass through a minefield and were subsequently targeted and disabled,” it said.

Bahrain also came under renewed attack early Tuesday morning as Iran retaliated over the latest round of US airstrikes. Bahrain sounded its missile alert siren, urging the public to seek shelter. There was no word on any damage or casualties from the attack.

The UAE ministry said the attack on the tankers killed one Indian national and wounded six Indians and two Ukrainians.

“The UAE reserves its full right to respond to this escalation and to take all necessary measures to protect its territory, its citizens and residents,” the ministry added.

Fighter jets could be heard overheard Tuesday morning in Dubai.

Earlier Monday, Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that the agreement reached last month was “built to test” Iran, adding that “when you’re dealing with sleazebags (agreements) don’t mean much.”

“They didn’t honor the test,” the president said.

Iran asserts it has the right to manage traffic through the strait and potentially charge fees in accordance with the interim peace deal. The US has disputed that.

The American military and the United Nations’ International Maritime Organization have tried to establish a route through the strait along the coast of Oman that would be outside of Iranian control. Iran has attacked ships using that route, saying the US is violating the interim peace deal. The US has attacked Iran in response, drawing Iranian attacks on US-allied Gulf states.

Exchanges of fire in recent days had already cast further doubt on the interim peace deal. Washington had lifted a blockade it imposed in mid-April as part of that deal, which also called for the strait to be fully reopened.

“We are reinstating the THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE,” Trump said on social media. “All other countries will have fair and open use of the Strait.”

The president said the US would be “reimbursed” by 20 percent of the value of cargo to help cover “any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security.”

The US military said it will resume its blockade of Iranian ports at midnight local Wednesday in Dubai.