DUBAI: The US launched strikes on Iran early Tuesday morning, hours after President Donald Trump said Washington is “reinstating” a blockade on Iran in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump separately suggested the United States will charge other ships for safe passage, upending hundreds of years of American policy supporting freedom of navigation across the globe.
Iran responded with attacks targeting Bahrain and two tankers associated with the United Arab Emirates travelling through the strait, killing one mariner and wounding eight others. The Emirates threatened to retaliate against Iran, potentially drawing the nation home to Abu Dhabi and Dubai back into fighting with Tehran.
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 once passed in peacetime. The price of benchmark Brent crude oil rose 7.8 per cent to USD 81.92 a barrel, still well below the nearly USD 120 reached at the height of the war but threatening to make costs everywhere higher.