U.S. reimposes blockade and steps up strikes as Iran threatens to halt Mideast energy exports

The U.S. reim­posed a naval block­ade on Iran and in­ten­si­fied its airstrike cam­paign Wednes­day in re­tal­i­a­tion for Tehran’s at­tacks on ships try­ing to pass through the Strait of Hor­muz. The Amer­i­can strikes hit an Iran­ian army bar­racks, killed at least sev­en troops and wound­ed more than 260 peo­ple across the coun­try, Iran­ian of­fi­cials said.

Days of back-and-forth strikes by the U.S. and Iran across the Mid­dle East — and re­newed threats to the wa­ter­way cru­cial to glob­al en­er­gy sup­plies — have shred­ded the in­ter­im deal to end the con­flict and the re­gion could tip back in­to all-out war.

The U.S. first im­posed a block­ade in April and then lift­ed it last month af­ter sign­ing the in­ter­im deal that paused the fight­ing and set a 60-day pe­ri­od for ne­go­ti­a­tions over is­sues such as Iran’s nu­clear pro­gram. Those talks have stalled as fight­ing over the Strait of Hor­muz has in­ten­si­fied.

When the U.S. and Is­rael launched the war on Iran on Feb. 28, Tehran ef­fec­tive­ly closed the wa­ter­way to ship­ping traf­fic — a move that sent the price of oil, fer­til­iz­er and many oth­er goods soar­ing far be­yond the re­gion and gave Iran ma­jor lever­age in ne­go­ti­a­tions. Those ris­ing prices pose a par­tic­u­lar chal­lenge to U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and his Re­pub­li­can Par­ty, which hopes to re­tain con­trol of Con­gress in elec­tions in No­vem­ber. But Wash­ing­ton has strug­gled to suc­cess­ful­ly re­open the wa­ter­way.

Iran’s para­mil­i­tary Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard threat­ened Wednes­day to halt all en­er­gy ex­ports from the Mid­dle East over the block­ade.

“The ex­port of oil and gas from the re­gion will be ei­ther for every­one or for no one,” it said.

Both the US and Iran launch at­tacks as the block­ade is reim­posed

The U.S. car­ried out a wave of strikes, hit­ting dozens of tar­gets overnight, the mil­i­tary’s Cen­tral Com­mand said Wednes­day, and then re­sumed strik­ing Iran dur­ing day­light — an un­usu­al move that fur­ther sig­naled the in­creas­ing tem­po of the at­tacks.

With­in 17 hours of reim­pos­ing the block­ade on Iran­ian ports, Cen­tral Com­mand said U.S. forces had “redi­rect­ed” two com­mer­cial ves­sels at­tempt­ing to run the block­ade.

“The U.S. mil­i­tary re­mains vig­i­lant and pre­pared to en­sure full com­pli­ance,” it said on so­cial me­dia.

Among the U.S. mil­i­tary’s tar­gets was Greater Tunb Is­land, which is viewed as a strate­gic point in the Strait of Hor­muz. Cen­tral Com­mand said the at­tack tar­get­ed Iran­ian de­fense and mis­sile sites.

Iran took con­trol of three is­lands — Abu Musa, Greater Tunb and Less­er Tunb — from what would be­come the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates in 1971. The UAE has sought to re­claim them.

Some an­a­lysts have sug­gest­ed that if the U.S. seized the is­lands, they could al­low it to con­trol the strait.

An­oth­er strike tar­get­ed a bar­racks for Iran’s 388th Mech­a­nized In­fantry Brigade, which op­er­ates tanks and ar­mored ve­hi­cles, in Sis­tan and Baluches­tan province, Iran­ian state tele­vi­sion re­port­ed. The re­port said the Amer­i­cans fired at least 13 mis­siles in the at­tack and that the sev­en dead in­clud­ed con­scripts and ca­reer sol­diers. A num­ber of troops were wound­ed.

In­clud­ing those at the bar­racks, more than 30 peo­ple have been killed in re­cent days, Iran­ian gov­ern­ment spokesper­son Fate­meh Mo­ha­jerani said, with­out elab­o­rat­ing.

Hos­sein Ker­man­pour, a spokesper­son for the Health Min­istry, mean­while, said over 260 peo­ple were wound­ed in overnight strikes alone — a fig­ure far larg­er than for any oth­er round of re­cent vi­o­lence be­tween Iran and the U.S. He did not say how many peo­ple were killed overnight.

The army said it would make “a de­ci­sive re­sponse to this ag­gres­sive ac­tion by the Amer­i­can en­e­my,” ac­cord­ing to state TV.

Mis­sile alert warn­ings sound­ed in Bahrain and Kuwait ear­ly Wednes­day as they faced in­com­ing Iran­ian fire — a dai­ly oc­cur­rence in re­cent days. Jor­dan said it shot down three in­com­ing Iran­ian mis­siles. Iran claimed at­tacks on the three na­tions, all of which host U.S. forces.

U.S. Navy Adm. Brad Coop­er, who leads Cen­tral Com­mand, said in a state­ment that Iran had launched dozens of mis­siles and drones at neigh­bor­ing Gulf Arab coun­tries.

Trump told the Fox News Chan­nel on Tues­day night that more U.S. strikes against Iran would come over the next two days and that bridges and pow­er plants could be tar­get­ed by next week un­less ne­go­ti­a­tions re­sume. Al­ready, the U.S. has struck at least one bridge.

“You bet­ter make a deal, or you’re not go­ing to have any­thing left,” Trump warned.

Iran’s am­bas­sador to the Unit­ed Na­tions, Amir Saeid Ira­vani, crit­i­cised Amer­i­ca’s at­tacks.

“The U.S. is the ag­gres­sor, not the vic­tim,” he wrote to the world body’s leader, ac­cord­ing to the state-run IR­NA news agency.

The Strait of Hor­muz re­mains at the heart of the fight­ing

The lat­est round of fight­ing is fo­cused on the Strait of Hor­muz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and nat­ur­al gas trade pass­es dur­ing peace­time. How to re­open the strait has be­dev­illed the U.S. since Iran choked it off in the ear­ly days of the war.

Dur­ing the in­ter­im deal, some ships be­gan mov­ing through the pas­sage us­ing a route near Oman over­seen by the U.S. mil­i­tary that is out­side Tehran’s con­trol.

In re­cent days, Iran at­tacked ships us­ing that route — and back-and-forth at­tacks en­sued. The U.S. has threat­ened to re­open the strait by force — but ex­perts say that would re­quire a much big­ger ar­ma­da if not tens of thou­sands of ground troops. Im­pos­ing the block­ade is an­oth­er way to put pres­sure on Iran.

But in the mean­time, oil prices are ris­ing. The price for Brent crude oil, the in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dard, trad­ed above $85 a bar­rel on Wednes­day — more than 15% high­er than the price be­fore the war, but still well be­low the near­ly $120 reached at the height of the con­flict.

An­a­lysts with the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund warned Wednes­day that while a sur­plus of oil had kept prices low, “much of that room has now been used up.”

“As ten­sions flare again in the Strait of Hor­muz, that room is now small­er and shrink­ing fur­ther as spare ca­pac­i­ty has been de­ployed, de­mand has com­pressed, and in­ven­to­ries have been drawn down,” Az­im Sadikov and Jean-Marc Na­tal wrote in a blog post. “Un­less in­ven­to­ries are re­plen­ished, the world will start from a weak­er po­si­tion when the next shock comes.”

Re­gion­al me­di­a­tors are still try­ing to get the Unit­ed States and Iran back to the ne­go­ti­at­ing ta­ble. —DUBAI, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (AP)

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Sto­ry by JON GAM­BRELL | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

As­so­ci­at­ed Press writer Nass­er Kari­mi in Tehran, Iran, con­tributed to this re­port.