New attacks on shipping as war talks hit impasse

The U.S. and Yemen's Ansar Allah reported separate ​attacks on shipping on Tuesday as prospects for ending the Iran war ​appeared to dim, with Tehran saying the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed unless Washington accepts its conditions.
The attacks, in the Sea of Oman leading to the strait and at the entrance to the Red Sea - both vital chokepoints for global oil supplies - come as the war shows no signs of ending despite repeated assertions from U.S. President Donald Trump of a deal being imminent. 
Oil prices gained and global shares retreated amid renewed pessimism about a quick end to the conflict. Brent crude futures climbed 1.4% to settle at $88.91 per barrel and U.S. crude rose 1.3% to $83.20. At the southern end of the Red Sea, four crew members were killed in a suspected Ansar Allah attack on a small cargo vessel in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on ⁠Tuesday, Yemen's Transport Ministry said. Two Yemeni rescuers from a military group were also killed, Yemen's Coast Guard said.
The fatalities aboard the Egyptian-owned Tihamah would be the first deaths on ⁠shipping by Ansar Allah since the Iran war began. The news agency Saba reported that the group, which said last month it would impose a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea, attacked a Saudi ship carrying military equipment in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. 
It did not name the ship, and there was no immediate Saudi response to the report. The U.S. military, meanwhile, said a U.S. Navy MH-60 helicopter fired two Hellfire missiles to disable ‌the steering gear of a Panama-flagged cargo ship. 
The ship ignored repeated warnings to stop violating a naval blockade on ​Iranian ports, the U.S. Central Command said. Maritime ⁠sources told Reuters the ship was hit off Pakistan while sailing into the Gulf of Oman.
The comments from Rezaei, appointed on Sunday as second-in-command of the body that coordinates ⁠Iran's security and foreign policy, were ​the strongest indication the Strait of Hormuz would not reopen to shipping anytime soon. The waterway handled a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas flow before the war.
'As long as America does not change its behaviour and does not accept Iran's conditions, the Strait of Hormuz will not be opened,' Rezaei said, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
There was no immediate comment from Washington on Iran's latest comments.
Thousands of people have been killed in the conflict since the U.S. and Israel launched attacks on Iran on February 28.
Iran has struck U.S. assets and infrastructure in countries including Oman, Jordan, Kuwait, Israel, the ​United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
Raising the prospect of further escalation, Mohammad Reza Naqdi, an adviser to the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, said on Iranian state TV on ​Tuesday that the corps was developing the ability to carry out operations 'on enemy soil.'
'We need to be able to move the operations to the enemy's soil, whenever this is needed and ordered,' he said. 'This is the characteristic of the offensive doctrine that has to be attained.'