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7 hours ago
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Interim summary
In case you’re just joining us, here’s a quick recap of the latest. It’s 9.30am in Tehran and 2am in Washington DC.
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The US military said it completed a “heavy wave of strikes” against Iran on Thursday in retaliation for Tehran targeting American bases in Jordan, as intensified fighting fueled the risk of a return to all-out war in the region.
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The new strikes were launched hours after Donald Trump vowed to hit Iran “very hard” after a days-long pause in violence between the two sides.
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Jordan’s military said later it had foiled an Iranian attempt to target the kingdom with five missiles, the state news agency reported. There were no casualties.
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US forces struck dozens of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targets including military command centres, US Central Command said.
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Iran’s state news agency Irna reported strikes on several cities in the south-western Khuzestan province, as well as on Qeshm island in the Gulf. Areas around the cities of Abadan, Shadegan, Arvandkenar and Ahvaz – all in Khuzestan – were struck, Irna said, citing provincial authorities.
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Earlier, the US partnered with Saudi Arabia to strike Iran-backed militias in neighbouring Iraq on Wednesday, killing at least 20 fighters and six Iranian advisers. Saudi Arabia had reported two days of drone attacks targeting crude facilities.
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Drone strikes ignited fires on two natural gas vessels in Egypt’s port of Damietta, British maritime security firm Ambrey said. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the strikes on a US-owned floating storage facility and a Greek-owned tanker.
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The Israeli military accused Iran-backed Hezbollah of a truce violation in Lebanon, saying it had fired a drone at an Israeli vehicle.
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Oil prices erased some of their previous gains despite the escalating attacks around the Gulf, with Brent futures falling 1.06% to $89.78 a barrel as of 0418 GMT Thursday. US West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.76% to $83.82 a barrel.
Key events
Lauren Almeida
Shell more than doubled its profit in its second quarter of the year, as Europe’s biggest oil and gas company reaped the benefits from the jump in oil and gas prices triggered by war in the Middle East.
The FTSE 100 company’s net profit hit $9.84bn (£7.4bn) in the three months to June, more than double compared with the same period last year.
Wholesale energy prices have soared because of the conflict in the Middle East, boosting profit margins and activity on Shell’s trading desks.
The global oil price has climbed from about $61 a barrel in January to highs of $126 at the end of April, owing to disruptions to flows of oil and gas through the strait of Hormuz. Brent crude, the international benchmark, traded at $93.18 a barrel on Thursday.
Wael Sawan, Shell’s chief executive, said there had been “severe disruption in global energy markets” due to the war, as the company also reported a 30% drop in production from its integrated gas division on the same quarter last year.
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The Egyptian government said a fire at the port of Damietta was caused by a drone attack.
Two natural gas vessels caught fire after an explosion at the port yesterday. The office of the Egyptian prime minister said initial investigations showed the fires on the two ships had been caused by a drone.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, although US president Donald Trump suggested Iran was behind it. He told reporters in the Oval Office that the incident was “more of the same” and that the US was “going to be hitting them very hard, because it’s our turn to hit them”.
Iran strike on Chinese company building in Kuwait kills worker, says Kuwaiti defence ministry
An Iranian attack struck a Chinese company building in the north of Kuwait, killing a worker, the country’s defence ministry said.
In a statement posted on the Kuwaiti army’s X page, ministry spokesperson Saud Abdulaziz al-Otaibi said the attack caused significant material damage to the building.
Iran has launched a series of missile strikes and drone attacks against several Arab countries in the Middle East, including Kuwait and Jordan, claiming to target US bases in those locations.
Here are some images on the newswires this morning after the US military announced a heavy wave of strikes against Iran:
Pakistan says US-Iran talks are 'ongoing'
Pakistan said negotiations between the US and Iran are “ongoing” despite escalating attacks in the Middle East.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Tahir Andrabi, said Islamabad was doing its “utmost” to bring the warring parties back to the negotiating table under the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by the US and Iran in June.
“Negotiations between the parties are ongoing,” Andrabi said at a press briefing today.
“We are doing our utmost to bring the parties back to the Islamabad MoU.”
Iran state media reported that the US military attacked three cities in the southern Bushehr province overnight.
Quoting a local governor, the official IRNA news agency said the cities of Bushehr, Jam and Khormoj were targeted in airstrikes and missile attacks.
Iran’s only civilian nuclear power plant is located in Bushehr, which Iranian authorities say has come under repeated US attacks.
Interim summary
In case you’re just joining us, here’s a quick recap of the latest. It’s 9.30am in Tehran and 2am in Washington DC.
-
The US military said it completed a “heavy wave of strikes” against Iran on Thursday in retaliation for Tehran targeting American bases in Jordan, as intensified fighting fueled the risk of a return to all-out war in the region.
-
The new strikes were launched hours after Donald Trump vowed to hit Iran “very hard” after a days-long pause in violence between the two sides.
-
Jordan’s military said later it had foiled an Iranian attempt to target the kingdom with five missiles, the state news agency reported. There were no casualties.
-
US forces struck dozens of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targets including military command centres, US Central Command said.
-
Iran’s state news agency Irna reported strikes on several cities in the south-western Khuzestan province, as well as on Qeshm island in the Gulf. Areas around the cities of Abadan, Shadegan, Arvandkenar and Ahvaz – all in Khuzestan – were struck, Irna said, citing provincial authorities.
-
Earlier, the US partnered with Saudi Arabia to strike Iran-backed militias in neighbouring Iraq on Wednesday, killing at least 20 fighters and six Iranian advisers. Saudi Arabia had reported two days of drone attacks targeting crude facilities.
-
Drone strikes ignited fires on two natural gas vessels in Egypt’s port of Damietta, British maritime security firm Ambrey said. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the strikes on a US-owned floating storage facility and a Greek-owned tanker.
-
The Israeli military accused Iran-backed Hezbollah of a truce violation in Lebanon, saying it had fired a drone at an Israeli vehicle.
-
Oil prices erased some of their previous gains despite the escalating attacks around the Gulf, with Brent futures falling 1.06% to $89.78 a barrel as of 0418 GMT Thursday. US West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.76% to $83.82 a barrel.
To recap on their closed-door meeting earlier at the White House, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu explored all possible paths to curb Iran’s nuclear program, including diplomacy, economic pressure and force, a senior Israeli official told Reuters.
The Israeli prime minister did not tell Trump that Israel’s preference now was for further attacks on Iran, the official said in briefings with reporters after the meeting on Tuesday. “In the end, it’s his decision,” the official said of Trump while speaking on condition of anonymity.
The US president had three options and all were discussed at length, said the official, listing them as “a [negotiated] deal, continuing the blockade and economic pressures, and a massive strike”. Netanyahu also added unspecified new ideas to the mix, the official added.
Trump had voiced irritation with Netanyahu ahead of their meeting, complaining that details had surfaced publicly about the Israeli prime minister’s plans to talk about new intelligence on Pickaxe Mountain, a deep-underground, nuclear-linked facility that Trump has threatened to bomb.
Pushing back against any notion of tensions over the issue, the official said the two allies readily share intelligence, denied that Netanyahu had pushed Trump to escalate militarily against Iran and left open the possibility of a diplomatic solution.
At the same time, the Israeli official acknowledged that Trump was the “senior partner” while Netanyahu was the “junior partner” in the allies’ conflict with Iran.
Oil prices erased some of their previous gains on Thursday despite the escalating attacks around the Gulf as investor focus shifted to supply flows through the key chokepoints in the region.
Brent futures fell 1.06% to $89.78 a barrel as of 0418 GMT. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell 0.76% to $83.82 a barrel.
Brent settled up 7.91% in the previous session and WTI up 6.56% in one of the sharpest spikes of the Iran war, reversing a 5% plunge on Tuesday after a pause in hostilities in the five-month conflict, Reuters reports.
Prices surged as Donald Trump threatened on Wednesday to hit Iran “very hard” after an Iranian missile attack on Tuesday on a US base in Jordan. The US on Thursday said it carried out two hours of reprisal attacks on Iran.
“Trump’s ‘hit hard’ rhetoric caused the price spike immediately but looks like the market has fully priced [that] in and [is] considering the ‘Taco’ possibility right now,” said Lin Ye, vice-president of commodity markets, oil, at Rystad Energy, referring to the acronym “Trump always chickens out”.
Ye said the market was following a pattern: geopolitical headlines were triggering rapid price spikes, but those gains were often short-lived as actual supply flows and parallel diplomatic efforts tended to determine how long those upward price moves persisted.
Rystad Energy estimates about 13m barrels a day of oil from the Gulf is still reaching markets.
Jordan says it has foiled Iranian missile attack
Jordan’s military is saying it has foiled an Iranian attempt to target the kingdom with five missiles, the state news agency reports.
The agency quoted the armed forces as saying “interception measures” were carried out and there were no casualties.
The military said it maintained “the highest levels of readiness to deal firmly with any threat” targeting the country’s security and its citizens, the Jordan News Agency posted on social media.
Earlier today the US military launched a “heavy wave” of new strikes on Iran in response to Tehran’s attack on American military installations in Jordan on Wednesday.
