The Houthis, a militant group in Yemen who have been threatening to open another front in the Iran war, said they had targeted two oil tankers in the Red Sea.
Minutes before the Houthi statement on Wednesday, the UK Maritime Trade Operations Center said the master of a tanker reported that the ship had been struck southwest of Al Shuqaiq on the Saudi Red Sea coast. Saudi Arabia didn’t immediately comment on the attack.
The Red Sea has emerged as a vital workaround for crude exports, particularly from Saudi Arabia, amid disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude rose as much as 2.5 percent to more than $96 a barrel, the highest level since early June.
The Houthis, a group from Yemen’s north who are backed by Iran, disrupted shipping with drone and missile attacks after Israel began its campaign against Hamas in Gaza. Those assaults ended with a truce in May 2025.
Shortly after reports of the Red Sea attacks, US Central Command said it launched its 12th consecutive night of strikes against Iran to degrade the nation’s ability to hit civilian shipping. American forces targeted missile and drone storage facilities, coastal surveillance sites and air defense assets, the command said in a post on X.
The US used a B-1 long-range bomber in the strikes on Tuesday to hit Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targets in Iran, Axios reported, citing a US official. The use of the bomber would be a first in the latest series of attacks, it said.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday evening.
With the conflict apparently widening, both the US and Iran have shown little inclination to return to the negotiating table.
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the Islamic Republic was “getting hit so hard” following the deaths of four US troops in the past week but wasn’t yet ready to sign an agreement. He earlier vowed to hit Iranian bridges and power plants if Tehran continued attacking vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
“They’re not ready to make a deal because every time they make a deal, they want to change it and everything,” Trump told supporters at a rally in Georgia.
Iran’s Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni visited Pakistan – which along with Qatar has been the main mediator in the near five-month conflict – but there was no sign the meetings were productive.
“There are no negotiations – it’s only possible for there to be an exchange of messages,” a spokesman for the Iranian ministry said after the Tuesday visit, according to the semi-official Mehr news agency. “Our new message is that the enemy violated the memorandum and should implement it,” he added, referring to the June 17 interim peace agreement that’s now effectively obsolete.
If the US strikes bridges or power plants, “Iran will strike infrastructure and bridges in the region, including energy facilities in which the US has interests,” the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported, citing an informed military source.
The US widened the scope of its airstrikes on Tuesday, with American forces hitting a military site near the northwestern city of Tabriz, according to Iranian media. That’s the first time the area is thought to have been hit since hostilities between the warring sides worsened two weeks ago.
The Iranian government activated air defenses early on Wednesday in Tehran, the capital, local media reported, adding that the US struck Abdanan and Chovar in the west, near the border with Iraq.
The economic fallout from the war, particularly high fuel prices, is weighing heavily on Americans as the November midterm elections approach. Trump has received poor marks for his handling of the economy and the conflict, polls show, putting his fellow Republicans at risk of losing control of Congress.
“It’s going to come down, maybe lower than when we even started – but just give me a little time,” Trump said Wednesday in Georgia, referring to oil prices.
The US says it will intensify its bombing campaign until Iran reopens the Strait of Hormuz and stops attacking commercial shipping. Tehran has shown no sign of backing down, insisting on maintaining control of traffic through the waterway despite Trump’s assertion that US strikes are seriously degrading its military.
The conflict has also taken a growing toll on US forces. The Pentagon said Tuesday that a 28-year-old Army sergeant previously listed as missing was killed in last week’s attack on an air base in Jordan, bringing US fatalities over the past week to four. Trump traveled to Dover, Delaware, on Wednesday to witness the return of some of the fallen troops’ remains.
Iran said recent US attacks had killed more than 50 people and wounded more than 500. Tehran vowed to respond with a “powerful strike” to any attack on its nuclear facilities or other sensitive infrastructure.
Esmail Baghaei, a spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said on X that the focus on Pickaxe Mountain, one of the sites, was “a fabricated pretext for aggression.”
If the US sets foot on Iranian soil, “it will face millions of people who will confront them with everything they have,” state TV cited Army Commander-in-Chief Amir Hatami as saying.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told senators Tuesday that the war had cost Washington $37.5 billion so far.
