United States\u00a0War\u00a0Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday that the next few days in the war against Iran would \u200bbe decisive and warned Tehran that the conflict would intensify if it did not make a deal.<\/p>\n
Hegseth issued his warning hours after Iran\u00a0set ablaze\u00a0a fully loaded oil tanker off Dubai, \u200cits latest attack on merchant vessels in the Gulf or in the Strait of Hormuz since the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28.<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump threatened on Monday to\u00a0obliterate Iran’s energy plants\u00a0if it does not agree to a peace deal and open the strait, a vital waterway for global oil shipments that has effectively been blocked by Iran.<\/p>\n
Read:\u00a0Trump to UK PM: Learn to fight for yourselves, US won\u2019t help anymore<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Trump criticised countries that have not helped in the war, including France and Britain, saying they should find “some delayed courage” to take the strait \u200band get their own oil. Sources told\u00a0Reuters\u00a0that France had not allowed its airspace to be used to transport US weapons for use in the war.<\/p>\n
Hegseth, who said he visited US troops in the Middle \u200bEast on Saturday, said Trump was willing to make a deal, and talks were ongoing and gaining strength, but that the US was prepared to continue the war \u2060if Iran did not comply.<\/p>\n
“We have more and more options, and they have less … in only one month we set the terms, the upcoming days will be decisive,” Hegseth said in Washington. “Iran knows that, and there’s almost nothing \u200bthey can militarily do about it.”<\/p>\n
Oil prices head for record monthly gain<\/p>\n
The month-old conflict has spread across the region, killing thousands, disrupting energy supplies and threatening to send the global economy into a tailspin.<\/p>\n
Crude oil prices briefly spiked \u200bagain after the attack on the tanker, which can carry around two\u00a0million barrels of oil worth more than $200m\u00a0at current prices.<\/p>\n
Authorities in Dubai said the fire on the Kuwait-flagged Al-Salmi had been brought under control following a drone attack, with no oil leak and no injuries to the crew. Kuwait Petroleum Corp, the ship’s owner, said the vessel’s hull was damaged, and photos of the Al-Salmi confirmed this.<\/p>\n
Also Read:\u00a0China, Pakistan FMs call for halting hostilities, opening of Hormuz Strait to end Middle East crisis<\/p>\n
LSEG Data showed the vessel was heading to Qingdao in China, and was carrying 1.2m barrels of \u200bSaudi crude oil and 800,000 barrels of Kuwaiti crude, according to monitoring service TankerTrackers.com.<\/p>\n
The Al-Salmi may not have been the intended target. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had targeted a container ship in the Gulf over its ties \u200bwith Israel. But they appeared to be referring to the Singapore-flagged Haiphong Express, which was anchored next to the Al-Salmi, according to shipping data.<\/p>\n
International attempts at mediation<\/p>\n
US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters in Washington \u200cthat the US \u2060was continuing to degrade and destroy Iran’s capabilities.<\/p>\n
He said the US military was continuing to strike key manufacturing and research sites and had taken out over 150 Iranian naval vessels. Hegseth said US strikes were causing widespread desertions in Iran.<\/p>\n
Thousands of soldiers from the US Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division have started arriving in the Middle East, two US officials told\u00a0Reuters\u00a0on Monday, reinforcements that could expand Trump’s options to include a ground assault in Iran.<\/p>\n
With attacks showing no sign of easing, Pakistan is\u00a0seeking to mediate\u00a0in the war. Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister\u00a0Ishaq Dar discussed the conflict during a visit to China today\u00a0after hosting talks with Turkiye, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
Read More:\u00a0Turkish FM expresses appreciation for hospitality during Pakistan visit<\/p>\n
Iran has \u200bremained defiant despite heavy US and Israeli attacks for \u200bthe past month. It has received US peace \u2060proposals via intermediaries, but its foreign ministry spokesperson said on Monday they were “unrealistic, illogical and excessive”.<\/p>\n
The failure to secure a peace deal has prompted the European Union’s energy chief to\u00a0warn\u00a0member states to prepare for a “prolonged disruption” to energy markets.<\/p>\n
Higher oil and fuel prices have also started to weigh on US household finances and are a political headache \u200bfor Trump and his Republican Party before the November midterm elections.<\/p>\n
The US national average retail price of gasoline crossed $4 a gallon for the first time in over three years \u200bon Monday, data from price-tracking service \u2060GasBuddy showed. Tight global supplies have pushed benchmark Brent crude up to above $114 per barrel, putting them on course for a record monthly gain.<\/p>\n
New attacks<\/p>\n
The war has continued to spread, with Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen entering the war by firing at Israel, and Turkey reporting on Monday that a ballistic missile launched from Iran had entered Turkish airspace before being shot down.<\/p>\n
The war has also revived conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese group\u00a0Hezbollah, while Iran, which has the highest \u2060casualty toll in \u200bthe war, has fired at targets in Gulf Arab states, where the US has military bases.<\/p>\n
A strike on a Shia Muslim congregation hall \u200bin the northwestern Iranian city of Zanjan killed three people, a provincial official told Iranian media.<\/p>\n
The Israeli military said on Tuesday it carried out\u00a0overnight airstrikes\u00a0in Tehran targeting a ballistic missile warhead factory, weapons research sites and missile launch systems, under intelligence guidance.<\/p>\n
It said four \u200bof its soldiers had been killed in southern Lebanon, where three United Nations peacekeepers from Indonesia have been killed in two separate incidents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United States\u00a0War\u00a0Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday that the next few days in the war against Iran would \u200bbe decisive and warned Tehran that the conflict would intensify if it did not make a deal. Hegseth issued his warning hours after Iran\u00a0set ablaze\u00a0a fully loaded oil tanker off Dubai, \u200cits latest attack on merchant vessels …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3263"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3271,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3263\/revisions\/3271"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}