The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Frank E. Petersen Jr. (DDG 121) sails behind the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72), June 27, 2026. Frank E. Petersen Jr. is deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations in support of maritime security and stability in the Middle East.
Courtesy of the United States Navy
President Donald Trump promised that the United States would retaliate severely after three American military were killed in recent fighting with Iran.
“Every time Iran kills an American soldier, it will pay many times over for this murder!” Trump wrote on Social truthadding that he transmitted this “directive” to “every leader of the army”.
The angry message came after the US military attacked a series of Iranovernight, the military sites and assets of Strait of Hormuz For oil tankers and other commercial vessels that were stranded during the war.
The US Central Command targeted “Iranian military command centers, air defense and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and communications networks” on Sunday evening, it said in a statement. post on.
The three-hour barrage of strikes “further diminishes Iran’s ability to attack commercial ships and civilian sailors transiting the Strait of Hormuz,” Centcom said.
But traffic through the strait, the economically vital waterway through which 20% of the world’s oil passed before the war began in late February, remains well below its prewar averages. Only 30 ‘verified transits’ across the strait were identified between Friday and Sunday, tracking company says Kpler said Monday morning.
Pressure on global oil supplies caused by the tumult in the strait threatened to worsen further on Monday, when Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen declared a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia.
Oil prices nevertheless fell on Monday morning, after Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said messages continued to be exchanged through intermediaries despite the escalation of the conflict. But prices rose slightly after Trump’s message.
Brent crude Futures, the international benchmark, were last seen up 32 cents at $88.42 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate American Brut Futures were up 1 cent at $82.50 a barrel.
Washington and Tehran have repeatedly accused each other of violating the temporary ceasefire agreement reached in June. Trump, frustrated by continued hostilities centered around the Strait of Hormuz, this month declared the ceasefire “over,” prompting the United States to resume its retaliatory blockade of Iranian ports in the Gulf.
The U.S. death toll from the war in Iran now stands at 17. Iranian officials said Sunday that at least 50 people were killed and more than 500 injured in new US strikes this month.
“The memorandum said little about how controversial incidents would be investigated or how a violation in one area would affect obligations elsewhere,” Michael Feller, chief strategist at Geo Political Strategy, said of the June agreement. The ambiguity of the memorandum meant that the incident quickly turned into a debate over whether the agreement still existed, he noted.
US strikes have expanded in recent days to target civilian infrastructure, including the Bonji desalination plant which cut off water supplies to around 10,000 people.
Tehran also retaliated in the Gulf by launching new attacks on targets in neighboring countries, including Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. The Kuwaiti military said on Monday that its air defense systems were intercept “hostile” drone attacks from Iran.
The US embassy in Manama, Bahrain’s capital, said on Monday it had information pointing to Iran. may seek to target unspecified locations in the city. Sirens sounded across Bahrain as authorities urged residents to take shelter.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Monday that two oil tankers “exploded” while trying to navigate the “unsafe and dangerous route south of the Strait of Hormuz.” Iranian authorities have warned ships against using the U.S.-Oman-backed southern corridor, insisting that only Iranian-designated routes are permitted.
Despite the reported slowdown in traffic across the strait, U.S. officials insisted that flows were still holding up. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday that about two-thirds of pre-conflict traffic… around 14 million barrels per day – crosses the choke point. Before the war, approximately 20 million barrels of crude oil and refined products passed through the waterway.
In an interview with ABC On Sunday, Wright said public reports that most shipping traffic had stopped in recent days were not true, estimating it was at about two-thirds of normal flow.
