The U.S. military on Tuesday afternoon said it launched a round of strikes against Iran’s military for a fourth straight day while it moved to impose a new blockade of Iranian ports.
The U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said that starting at 3 p.m. ET, it launched “an additional round of strikes against Iran to continue degrading Iranian capabilities used to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.”
“The strikes are taking place as American forces prepare to resume the naval blockade against Iranian ports and coastal areas,” said a CENTCOM statement posted on X. The blockade will go into effect starting at 4 p.m. ET.
CENTCOM confirmed in the social media post that the blockade had resumed.
“There are currently more than 20 U.S. Navy warships and hundreds of military aircraft operating across the Middle East. American forces remain vigilant, lethal, and ready,” the statement said.
The U.S. military launched strikes on Iran on Monday, building on several days of mutual attacks over control of the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway that allows for shipments of about 20 percent of the world’s oil. Iran on Tuesday retaliated with attacks on Middle East allies of the United States, claiming it struck military bases in the region.
“Those Investments will be MASSIVE but, at the same time, extraordinarily good for them, and their future,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
The president told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday that “kings and emirs” as well as other leaders called him after his proposal on Monday for the toll on cargo passing through the strait.
“They said, ‘We’d love to do it a different way. We’d love to invest in the United States with billions and billions of dollars,’” Trump said.
Meanwhile, the renewed fighting leaves a memorandum of understanding signed by Iran and the United States that served as a temporary peace deal in tatters. Fresh U.S. strikes against the country were initiated after Iran attacked several oil tankers in the strait, claiming that ships can only travel through routes pre-approved by Tehran.
The first U.S. blockade lasted from mid-April to mid-June, with CENTCOM saying it redirected or disabled more than 140 ships traveling to or from Iran. It was announced by Trump just days after a ceasefire was announced by the U.S. president, which halted fighting that started when the United States and Israel launched strikes in February.
Specifically, the U.S. military said on Monday evening that it struck several areas in Iran such as “coastal defense systems, missile and drone sites and maritime capabilities.” Iran acknowledged the strikes but provided no immediate casualty or damage assessments.
“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 U.S. military added.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said in a statement through state-run PressTV on Tuesday that its forces launched attacks against U.S. facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait in response to the American strikes.
The IRGC also said that it would move to block oil and gas “exported from the region” and added that the strikes “will only delay the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz,” state media reported.
Earlier Tuesday, the IRGC said through state-run media that it attacked two supertankers in the strait while the UK Maritime Trade Organization also confirmed two tanker ships had been struck.