Iran threatens to block more vital seaways

CAIRO/DUBAI: Iran threatened on Wednesday to shut off more regional energy ​exports, after the US reimposed a naval blockade of Iranian ports and both sides launched more strikes as they vie for control of the Strait of Hormuz. The apparent threat to shipping through Bab el Mandeb, a gateway to the Red Sea, follows an escalation between Iran and the US since last week that has severely frayed a tentative truce signed in June.
The US conducted a new wave ​of strikes against Iran's coastal defence systems and missile sites on Wednesday after reimposing a naval blockade of Iranian ports, while Iran threatened to shut off more regional energy exports.
The daytime strikes mark the latest escalation of attacks and counterattacks launched by the two sides as they vie for control of the Strait of Hormuz, which carried about a fifth of global oil and gas shipments before the war.
'At 6 am ET (1100 GMT) today, US Central Command forces began launching a wave of strikes against Iran,' the US military said.
'The strikes are designed to further degrade military capabilities that Iranian forces have used to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.'
Iran's Mehr news agency reported that US projectiles had hit a location on Iran's Hengam Island in ⁠the Strait of Hormuz.
US Central Command said the military had attacked coastal defence systems and cruise missile storage and launch sites on Iran's Greater Tunb Island, and had completed the wave ⁠of strikes within around 90 minutes.
That followed seven hours of strikes on Tuesday, in which the US said it had hit dozens of military targets near the Strait of Hormuz and Iranian coastal areas.
In response, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Wednesday it had struck US military targets in the region, including in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan.
It also threatened on Wednesday to shut off more regional energy exports, saying the US 'must brace for the closure of all other export corridors that benefit the US and its allies'.
An interim ceasefire deal in the conflict signed last month was meant to lead ​to further negotiations, including on Iran's nuclear programme, and ⁠to a permanent truce, but a return to talks has faltered.
'We have no plans for negotiations at the moment and are focused on defence,' Tasnim news agency ​quoted Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei as saying.
He said the ‌ceasefire was a set of mutual obligations, and as long as the US breached its commitments under the deal, Iran would refrain from fulfilling its own.
Hostilities have intensified since Iran said late on Saturday it had closed the Strait of Hormuz. The US says Iran had attacked seven commercial ships over the ​last week, leaving nearly a dozen crew members killed, missing, or injured.
Iranian government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said at least 30 civilians had been killed in recent days due to the US strikes on southern Iran, state media reported on Wednesday.
Iran's army said at least seven active-duty and conscript personnel were killed in overnight US strikes on the Bampur military base in the country's southeast. — Reuters