{"id":558574,"date":"2026-07-20T06:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T06:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/558574\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T06:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T06:31:09","slug":"us-attacks-iran-for-ninth-day-as-shipping-concerns-grow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/558574\/","title":{"rendered":"US attacks Iran for ninth day as shipping concerns grow"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>US forces hit Iran for a ninth consecutive day as concerns grow over shipping through the Strait of Hormuz after Iran said two oil tankers had exploded and been immobilised.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, US Central Command said it had begun &#8220;a new wave of strikes&#8221; aimed at &#8220;degrading&#8221; Iran&#8217;s ability to attack commercial vessels in the strait&#8217;s vital shipping lanes. It gave no further details.<\/p>\n<p>The strikes are part of an escalating cycle of attacks between the US and Iran after an interim ceasefire agreement signed a month ago unravelled, deepening a struggle for control over the Strait of Hormuz that has disrupted energy supplies and stoked fears of global inflation.<\/p>\n<p>Iran&#8217;s semi-official Tasnim news agency, citing its own reporters, said US missiles struck several Iranian cities early this morning.<\/p>\n<p>Explosions were heard in Tabriz, Chabahar, Konarak, Bandar Mahshahr and Bandar Imam Khomeini, according to Tasnim.<\/p>\n<p>US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US would continue to target Iran while it attacked global commercial shipping.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Strait of Hormuz are international waterways, and they continue to launch against the ships in that international waterway,&#8221; Mr Rubio said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As long as Iran insists on \u200ccontrolling an international waterway, we&#8217;re going to have to respond to that. \u2060The United States always remains open to a diplomatic solution.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"ships sailing near the Strait of Hormuz off the eastern coast of the United Arab Emirates at Khor Fakkan\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/0024b81a-614.jpg\"\/><br \/>\nConcerns about the flow of energy supplies through the strait have persisted since the fighting resumed<\/p>\n<p>For its part, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced a surprise strike against &#8220;the enemy&#8217;s special operations headquarters&#8221; in Syria&#8217;s Al-Tanf area.<\/p>\n<p>The Revolutionary Guards also said they targeted US aircraft at Jordan&#8217;s Aqaba airport with ballistic missiles.<\/p>\n<p>Iran earlier conducted a drone attack on US military assets and equipment at Kuwait&#8217;s Al-Adiri camp and Ali Al Salem air base, Iranian state TV reported early yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>Kuwait&#8217;s government said a desalination plant was attacked for the second day running, causing a fire, in what it called a direct strike on vital civilian infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>Concerns about the flow of energy supplies through \u200cthe Strait of Hormuz have persisted since the US and Iran resumed open hostilities after accusing each other of repeatedly violating a ceasefire deal.<\/p>\n<p>The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said late yesterday that it received a report that a vessel was on fire not far from the Omani coast, although it \u2060had not verified a cause.<\/p>\n<p>The Revolutionary Guards said today that two oil tankers had exploded and been immobilised after attempting to transit what it described as an unsafe southern route through Hormuz, alleging \u200cthe vessels had been encouraged by the US military to use the passage.<\/p>\n<p>Reuters could not immediately verify the incident.<\/p>\n<p>The statement gave no details \u2060on the vessels&#8217; names, \u200cflags, crews or any casualties.<\/p>\n<p>The Guards said the waterway would remain unsafe as long as what it called US &#8220;aggression&#8221; in the region continued, warning that &#8220;this passage will not be safe for the transit of petrochemical products, nor even a single drop of oil and gas&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Four vessels made the transit through Hormuz yesterday, down from eight the previous day, LSEG data showed.<\/p>\n<p>At least three oil products&#8217; tankers and one Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) have entered the strait since Friday to load oil, \u2060the data showed.<\/p>\n<p>Oil prices rose 2% to more than $90 a barrel today.<\/p>\n<p>In the latest American casualty reported in the war, the US military said yesterday that a service member was killed on Saturday \u2060in northern Iraq, where the US has military bases, during a controlled detonation of what Central Command called unexploded ordnance on a downed Iranian attack drone.<\/p>\n<p>The US military said earlier that two service personnel died in Jordan and that a third was missing in action. Yesterday, US Central Command said that &#8220;unidentified remains&#8221; had been found at the site of Friday&#8217;s attack and that &#8220;an examination process to verify the remains is ongoing&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The latest casualty announcements brought the total number of US military personnel killed since the war began to 17, with more than 420 others wounded.<\/p>\n<p>The conflict &#8211; which began when the US and Israel attacked Iran on 28 February, seeking to disable Tehran&#8217;s nuclear and missile programmes and weaken its regional proxies &#8211; has killed thousands of people, mostly in Iran and Lebanon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US forces hit Iran for a ninth consecutive day as concerns grow over shipping through the Strait of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-558574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}