- IRGC says it attacked 10 ships, including two US vessels and eight oil tankers
- US military says it destroyed five Iranian oil tankers
- Fuel oil tanker catches fire off Iraq
- Iran also fires on US base in Jordan; Jordan says it intercepted most missiles
CAIRO/WASHINGTON/DUBAI, Sept 9 (Reuters) – Iran said on Wednesday it had attacked 10 ships near the Strait of Hormuz after the U.S. sank five Iranian oil tankers, in the biggest declared wave of tit-for-tat attacks on shipping by both sides since the start of the six-month-old war.
The attacks in and around the vital waterway sent the price of oil surging, with the international Brent crude benchmark breaching $100 a barrel for the first time since July. The politically sensitive average retail price of diesel fuel in the United States hit a fresh all-time high above $5.94 a gallon.
Iran also said it had fired ballistic missiles at a base used by U.S. forces in Jordan. Attacks by both sides since the end of August have shattered a month of relative calm, with the U.S. and Iran hitting military, shipping and energy assets.
The Revolutionary Guards said they would sharply escalate their response to any further attacks, and if the enemy struck two or three Iranian targets, Iran would respond by hitting 20. Iran would soon release maps of a new, much larger off-limits zone at sea that would extend as far as the Arabian Gulf off Chabahar on the far reaches of Iran’s coast near Pakistan, the Guards said.
Recent days have also seen an escalation in fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis in Yemen, a second theatre of war that threatens global energy supplies from the Middle East.
VIDEO SHOWS IRANIAN TANKERS ABLAZE
The Americans said they destroyed five Iranian oil tankers overnight, releasing video of ships ablaze before they sank. The U.S. military’s Central Command called its attacks a response to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeting a U.S. Navy warship twice with ballistic missiles over the previous two days. No Americans were harmed, the U.S. said.
Washington has announced a new policy of attacking Iranian tankers in retaliation for fire that threatens its warships, and first said it hit three tankers on Saturday. Iran says it is using new, more capable missiles to attack U.S. ships.
“Iran continues to try to hit U.S. naval ships, and for every time they do that or try to do that, they’re going to lose tankers,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters during a visit to Colombia.