US and Iran exchange attacks, with UAE and Jordan targeted

The U.S. and Iran exchanged strikes for the first time in about a month as American forces hit an island in the Strait of Hormuz and the Islamic Republic responded by launching attacks on the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.

Iranian media also said the country’s authorities seized a bulk carrier near the port of Bandar Abbas in the strait and claimed an oil supertanker trying to go through the waterway was hit by mines early on Monday.

The incidents underline the high tensions between Washington and Tehran, with the countries still at odds over the status of the Strait of Hormuz and unwilling to restart negotiations to end a war now more than six months old.

Crude oil prices rose, with Brent climbing 2.4% to above $90 a barrel. European natural gas prices increased too.

Several current and former U.S. and Iranian officials have said they expect the conflict to drag on for months, with the sides essentially deadlocked and bouts of fighting puncturing weeks-long lulls in hostilities.

“The state of neither war nor peace cannot be a sustainable solution,” Anwar Gargash, a senior foreign-policy advisor to the UAE’s leadership, said on X soon after the country fended off a drone attack. “What is needed today are realistic and sustainable political solutions that address the political and economic dimensions of the crisis, beginning with overcoming the escalation and returning navigation in the Strait of Hormuz to its normal state.”

U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, said it fired on Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces after spotting them preparing to deploy mines into the Strait of Hormuz.

It was a “limited, precise action,” Central Command said. “Iran created the threat and the U.S. military eliminated it to protect civilian mariners, commercial shipping, and the free flow of global commerce.”

Iran said several people were killed in the U.S. strikes, which it said targeted Larak Island overnight. The IRGC retaliated with a missile-and-drone attack on U.S. air bases in Jordan early Monday. Jordan’s military intercepted eight missiles, destroying them before they caused any damage, the Jordan News Agency reported.

The UAE’s military dealt with a drone coming from Iran over the country’s territorial waters and said its forces remain on high alert. The Gulf Arab state denied an IRGC claim that the Al Minhad airbase just outside of Dubai was targeted with missiles.

Iranian media reported that a vessel carrying sugar was seized near the port of Bandar Abbas, which sits in the strait, because it was polluting the waters it was sailing in. The ship wasn’t identified.

The U.S. attack was the first against Iran since late July, as President Donald Trump has shifted toward an economic pressure campaign aimed at winning concessions from Tehran. Countries with ties to Tehran have so far shrugged off sanctions threats. Iran analysts and sanctions exporters have largely been underwhelmed by early U.S. actions, including proposing to cut off the UAE branches of Egypt’s Banque Misr from the American financial system.

Any sustained return to hostilities risks driving up energy costs and stoking inflation, which would unnerve global investors and complicate Republicans’ effort to retain control of the U.S. Congress in November’s midterm elections. Polls show growing frustration among American voters with the war and Trump’s inability to bring it to an end.

Last week, the U.S. military said it finished clearing mines from shipping routes in the strait, which previously carried one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas. U.S. allies, however, have privately warned that the strait was still likely mined.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said Iran remains open to resuming diplomacy with the U.S., but argued that progress depends on Washington abandoning its pressure campaign.

Iran, in particular, wants the U.S. to lift a blockade of Iranian ports. That operation is preventing Iran getting its oil onto international markets and importing many vital goods, causing inflation to rise. Still, the economic squeeze isn’t powerful enough yet to convince Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and hardliners within the government to accept American demands and allow ships free passage through the Strait of Hormuz.

Following what he described as “creative discussions” last week with Qatar, a mediator in the conflict, Araghchi said progress “hinges on U.S. understanding of one simple fact: Pressure doesn’t work.”

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent promised an “economic onslaught” against Iran and its trading partners. That includes China, which buys 90% of Iran’s oil. He said the White House would discuss with allies their plans to stop buying Iranian products, but so far there have been no agreements to do so.

Bessent told the Associated Press ahead of the Group of 20 finance ministers meeting in North Carolina that the U.S. would penalise a second bank that does business with Iran this week.

“This is going to be financial violence if we have to,” Bessent said.

—With assistance from Patrick Sykes, Jon Herskovitz, Paul Abelsky, Anand Krishnamoorthy and Akriti Sharma.