Iran firm on Strait blockade despite attack at oil hub

The United States’ efforts to prevent Iran from blocking oil shipments in the Strait of Hormuz were met with Iranian defiance on Saturday, after the US launched a major raid on a key Iranian oil hub and threatened further escalation.

President Donald Trump said on social media that the raid on Friday night had “totally obliterated” military forces on Kharg Island. Nearly all of Iran’s oil exports leave through the island, but Trump said that “for reasons of decency” he had directed the Pentagon not to damage its oil infrastructure. Still, he said that it, too, would be attacked if Iran continued to throttle the Strait of Hormuz and block global oil trade.

Trump’s threat did not appear to make Iran back down from its blockade of the strait, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil travels.
In a statement on Saturday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said the waterway was under the full control of its navy. “The passage of oil tankers and commercial ships belonging to aggressors and their allies through the Strait of Hormuz remains prohibited,” the Revolutionary Guard said in a statement carried by Iranian media. “Any attempt to move or transit will be targeted.”

The global price of oil has surged 40% since the United States and Israel began the war with Iran. Iran’s threats to attack ships in the narrow strait have scared oil tankers away and squeezed the global supply of oil. Several ships have been attacked in or near the strait.

On Saturday, an Iran-backed militia group in Iraq said it had attacked the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad early in the morning, at least the fourth attack on an American diplomatic installation since the war began. A video captured near the embassy and verified by The New York Times shows a structure on the roof on fire. The embassy later sent out a message advising all Americans in Iraq to “leave immediately” because of threats from militias.

Trump’s plans for the next steps in the war are still murky. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday did not provide an estimate of when the war would end, but he repeated the message that one objective was to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

The war remains unpopular among the American public, which has been feeling the effects at the gas pump. On Saturday, U.S. gasoline prices rose to an average of $3.68 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club, an increase of 23.5% since the war began.

Trump has attacked some news organizations for their reporting on the war. On Saturday, Brendan Carr, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, who has used his regulatory power to pressure television networks over what he perceives as left-wing bias, threatened to revoke broadcasters’ licenses over their coverage of the war, accusing media outlets of “running hoaxes and news distortions.”

Since the start of the war on Feb. 28, the United States has hit 6,000 targets in Iran, Hegseth said Friday.

In the strikes on Kharg Island, about 15 miles from the country’s coast, a U.S. military official said Air Force bombers struck missile storage sites, as well as sites that housed Iranian mines. A U.S. official briefed on intelligence said last week that Iran had begun to lay mines in the strait.

A senior official from Iran’s Oil Ministry said employees of the oil refineries reported nearly two hours of nonstop explosions and airstrikes that shook the island like an earthquake.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.