Alexander Cornwell, Trevor Hunnicutt and Yomna Ehab
Tel Aviv/Washington: Iran attacked and set ablaze a fully loaded crude oil tanker off Dubai on Tuesday, as US President Donald Trump warned America would obliterate Iran’s energy plants and oil wells if it did not open the Strait of Hormuz.
The strike on the Kuwait-flagged Al-Salmi is the latest in a string of assaults on merchant vessels by missiles or explosive air and sea drones in the Gulf and Strait of Hormuz since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28.
The month-long conflict has spread across the Middle East, killing thousands, disrupting energy supplies and threatening to send the global economy into a tailspin.
Crude oil prices briefly spiked anew after the attack on the tanker, which can carry about 2 million barrels of oil worth more than $US200 million ($292 million) at current prices.
Kuwait Petroleum Corp, the ship’s owner, said the attack happened early on Tuesday, causing a fire and hull damage, but there were no reported injuries.
Authorities in Dubai later said they had been able to bring the fire under control.
The jump in oil and fuel prices has started to weigh on US household finances and become a political headache for Trump and his Republican Party before the November midterm elections, having vowed to lower energy prices and increase US oil and gas production.
The US national average retail price of petrol crossed $US4 a gallon for the first time in more than three years on Monday, data from price-tracking service GasBuddy showed, as tightening global supplies push US crude prices above $US101 a barrel.
Attacks by both sides are showing no signs of easing, as fears of a wider conflict grow.
Israel carried out missile strikes on what it called military infrastructure in Tehran and infrastructure used by Iran-backed Hezbollah in Beirut, leaving black smoke hanging over the Lebanese capital. The Israeli military said early on Tuesday that four soldiers had been killed in southern Lebanon, the same area where three United Nations peacekeepers from Indonesia were killed in two separate incidents in recent days.
Trump posted without comment a video of a massive explosion that was purportedly a major strike conducted outside the central Iranian city of Isfahan. The Baluch advocacy group HalVash shared the same video and others from the ground outside Isfahan. Fire-tracking satellites from NASA suggest the explosions happened near Mount Soffeh, an area believed to have military positions.
Isfahan is home to one of three uranium enrichment sites bombed by the US in the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June 2025. A portion of Iran’s highly enriched uranium is believed to be entombed there – something the US has suggested it could seize with ground forces. Iran has not formally acknowledged the attack.
Iran’s military spokesman said on state television that targets in the latest wave of Tehran’s missile and drone attacks included “hideouts” of US military personnel in five bases in the region and in Israel.
Thousands of soldiers from the US Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division have started arriving in the Middle East, two US officials told Reuters on Monday, part of reinforcements that would expand Trump’s options to include a ground assault in Iran, even as he pursues talks with Tehran.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump wanted to reach a deal with Tehran before a second deadline – now April 6 – for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway that normally carries about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies.
Leavitt said talks with Iran were progressing, adding that what Tehran said publicly differed from what it was telling US officials in private.
The Wall Street Journal later reported Trump had told aides he was willing to end the military campaign against Iran even if the strait remained largely closed, and leave a complex operation to reopen it for a later date.
Iran said earlier on Monday it had received US peace proposals via intermediaries, following talks on Sunday between the foreign ministers of Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said the proposals were “unrealistic, illogical and excessive”.
“Our position is clear. We are under military aggression. Therefore, all our efforts and strength are focused on defending ourselves,” he told a press conference.
Soon after Baghaei’s remarks, Trump said the US was in talks with a “more reasonable regime” to end the war in Iran, but also issued a new warning over the Strait of Hormuz.
“Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘Open for Business’, we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island,” Trump wrote in a social media post, also threatening to attack Iranian desalination plants.
The White House said Trump was considering asking Arab nations to pay for the cost of the war.
“It’s an idea that I know that he has and something that I think you’ll hear more from him on,” Leavitt said in response to a reporter’s question about the idea.
His administration has requested an additional $US200 billion in funding for the war. The request faces stiff opposition in the US Congress, which must approve new spending.
Reuters
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