Iran-US war live: Missile sirens sound across the Middle East after Trump resumes strikes on Tehran – UK Times

Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, warned Washington that any further attacks would draw a response after the US launched fresh strikes overnight.

“Let me put it plainly: if you strike, you’ll get hit,” he wrote on X, adding that the Strait of Hormuz would only operate under Iranian arrangements and not “American threats”.

Donald Trump has warned that Washington would respond even more forcefully if Iran targeted shipping again, while US Central Command said the operation was aimed at protecting freedom of navigation through one of the world’s busiest oil transit routes.

The renewed conflict has raised fears of a wider regional crisis and sent shockwaves through global markets.

Brent crude climbed more than 5 per cent to nearly $80 a barrel as investors worried about disruptions to oil supplies through the Strait of Hormuz, while US stock markets fell.

The fresh strikes have also dealt a blow to hopes that last month’s interim truce between Washington and Tehran could be turned into a lasting peace agreement.

The US launched a second wave of strikes on Iran on Wednesday, hours after president Donald Trump declared that an interim agreement to end the conflict was “over”.

Iranian state media reported explosions in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, the coastal city of Sirik and Bushehr province, while the US military said the attacks were intended to weaken Iran’s ability to threaten shipping in the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

The latest escalation came after three commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz were attacked, prompting the US to carry out what it described as retaliatory strikes.

With the US and Iran once again trading strikes, traders across Wall Street are racing to factor in more potential disruptions to the global economy.

“We always expected it to be a rocky road to resolution, but this is a pretty big rock,” Tyler Rosenlicht, head of natural resource equities at Cohen & Steers, told The Wall Street Journal. “It’s really tough to be confident in anything.”

On Wednesday, Brent crude oil futures rose 5.2 per cent and US oil futures were up 4.4 per cent.

The potential unraveling of a fragile truce between Iran and the United States renewed anxiety Wednesday over whether fuel prices would go back up if sustained fighting kept oil tankers from traveling through the Persian Gulf.

Oil prices rose to their highest point in weeks after President Donald Trump declared the U.S. ceasefire with Iran over, responding to Iranian attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz and on American military sites in other Gulf nations. Costlier crude oil could lead to costlier gas station fill-ups as drivers in many countries were getting a break from elevated prices brought on by the war.

“Tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has essentially stopped, which tells you more about risk perception right now than any statement from Washington or Tehran,” said Jorge Leon, head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad Energy, in an email. “Oil markets reacted quickly to the renewed geopolitical risk.”

U.S. gasoline prices increased slightly Wednesday to an average of $3.80 for a gallon of regular, up from $3.79 the day before, but still well below the month-ago average of $4.16, according to motor club federation AAA.

Crude oil makes up the bulk of the price of gasoline, so when oil prices rise, gasoline eventually follows. But it can take weeks for consumers to feel the full impacts. That’s because refiners make gasoline with oil purchased in advance. The finished product then has to travel through a system of pipelines and trucks to reach gas station pumps.

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President Trump continues to argue the US-Israeli conflict with Iran is not a war, even as American forces have struck targets across Iran on Wednesday.

“It’s really not a war so much”, he told reporters on Air Force One on Wednesday. “It’s a de-nuking of Iran. De-nuclearisation of Iran”.

“So this is all about taking nuclear weapons, not allowing Iran to have nuclear weapons”, he added. “And everybody should like that”.

President Trump reportedly used the old Air Force One rather than the new, Qatar-donated luxury model to depart the Nato summit in Turkey on Wednesday as a security precaution because of the reignited Iran war, according to The New York Times.

On Wednesday, the president claimed the new plane was being sent to a Royal Air Force base in England on its way back from the summit as a treat for the “wonderful” American military service members there.

The US-Iran conflict appears to be widening again.

In a statement, the country condemned what it called Iran’s “criminal attacks using missiles and drones targeting civilians in Bahrain”.

Missile alerts also went off in Qatar, the Associated Press reports.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards say they targeted US military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait on Wednesday.

President Trump continues to paint a victorious picture of his Iran campaign, even as hostilities ratcheted back up this week.

“We’ve already won”, Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Wednesday.

He nonetheless vowed overwhelming American reprisals to Iranian attacks on shipping vessels, promising to return any force with 20 times the power.