US Strikes Pound Iran for a Reported 12th Night as Houthis Claim New Front on Saudi Tankers
Yemen's Houthi rebels say they hit two Saudi oil tankers with drones and missiles — a claim Saudi authorities have not confirmed — as a war that has already sent home four dead Ame
By Ingrid "Shortwave" Frost
Explosions lit up the Iranian cities of Sirik, Ahvaz and Bushehr overnight as American strikes on Iran entered what Al Jazeera's live coverage described as a 12th consecutive night. That count, and those locations, rest on Al Jazeera's reporting alone; the Press could not independently confirm the strike count or the cities hit. There is no independent, verified casualty count from Iran either. What is confirmed is that the bombing has not stopped, and it is spreading.
Yemen's Houthi movement said it struck two Saudi Arabian oil tankers with drones and missiles, the first Red Sea attacks since the group declared what it calls a "maritime embargo" against Saudi Arabia. That is the Houthis' own account of their own operation — a combatant describing its own strike — and it could not be independently verified. Saudi authorities have not confirmed the tankers were hit. Al Jazeera spoke with Yemenis who fear the blockade could reignite the country's own war, deepen shortages and worsen hunger that never fully lifted from the last one.
Oil markets felt it too. Crude prices rose after President Donald Trump threatened to bomb Iranian infrastructure if shipping through the Strait of Hormuz comes under attack, CNBC reported — a warning that treats the world's most important oil chokepoint as a line Washington will defend by force.
The war's cost at home was made plain at Dover Air Force Base, where President Trump attended a dignified transfer for four U.S. service members killed in recent fighting in the Middle East. CBS News reported names for the four dead. As of filing, only CBS News had named them; the Defense Department had not yet released the identities, and the Press could not independently confirm them. Naming the fallen is a family-level accuracy matter that cannot be undone, so this account withholds those names pending official confirmation. We will publish them in a follow-up once the department's release confirms — or corrects — what CBS reported. Trump called the four "great heroes," Fox News reported. In social media posts, the president also compared Iran war fatalities to the death tolls of Vietnam and Afghanistan — a framing critics say minimizes the toll, per ABC News; it is Trump's own comparison, not an independently audited count.
What matters for readers far from any of this: a war that started over Iran now has a second front, on the tanker lanes that carry Gulf oil to the rest of the world. Nobody has said how, or when, either front closes.
FILED FROM SOMEWHERE WITH BAD COFFEE -
— Compiled from reporting by Al Jazeera, CNBC, CBS News, ABC News and Fox News.
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