The waters around the Strait of Hormuz just saw their most violent weekend in weeks. American forces disabled a cargo ship in the Gulf of Oman. Two tankers were hit near the strait. Saudi air defenses knocked down missiles aimed at Riyadh. And Iran announced that it no longer accepts any limit on how far its missiles can fly. Then Monday came, and oil prices fell anyway. Brent crude dropped 5.8 percent after President Donald Trump told CNN that new US strikes on Iran were “highly unlikely” as long as talks keep making progress.
A US aircraft disables a ship in the Gulf of Oman
US Central Command, known as CENTCOM, said a US military aircraft fired precision munitions at the stern of the Huda, a bulk carrier flagged in St. Kitts and Nevis, in the Gulf of Oman on Saturday. The strike disabled the ship. According to CENTCOM, the Huda had visited an Iranian port and then tried to leave regional waters. Its crew ignored repeated warnings and tried several times to break through the US naval blockade of Iran. CENTCOM said the crew was directed to leave the targeted areas before the aircraft fired.
The Huda was not an isolated case. CENTCOM said its forces have redirected 147 commercial vessels since July under the blockade, and have disabled five merchant ships that refused to comply. The same Saturday evening brought two more tanker incidents near the Strait of Hormuz, according to reports from the UK Maritime Trade Operations center. One tanker caught fire and its crew was evacuated. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard navy later claimed that two tankers had struck naval mines after using unauthorized routes through the strait. That claim has not been independently confirmed.
Iran says its missile range limit is gone
On land, Tehran raised the stakes with words. Gen. Hossein Mohebbi, the spokesman for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was asked at a press conference in Tehran on Saturday whether Iran still limits its ballistic missiles to a range of 2,000 kilometers, about 1,200 miles. “That restriction has been lifted for us,” he said, according to the Associated Press. He added that Iran would demonstrate its capabilities in practice rather than talk about them.
The limit was one Iran imposed on itself, and even that range already covers the whole Arabian Peninsula, Israel, most of Egypt and parts of Greece and the Balkans. Mohebbi did not say whether Iran actually has missiles that can fly farther than 2,000 kilometers, and Iran is not known to have any, the AP reported. He also said Iran has moved production of its missiles and drones into underground facilities. His comments came days after a statement attributed to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, warned that any threat from the United States or Israel would be answered without geographic limits.
Missiles fall on Riyadh
The fighting reached the Saudi capital early on Sunday. Saudi officials said air defenses intercepted two ballistic missiles and two cruise missiles fired toward Riyadh and other regions. Falling debris damaged a building owned by Aramco, the state oil giant, in the King Abdullah Financial District. The Saudi Energy Ministry said there were no casualties at the site, according to the Associated Press. Saudi Arabia blamed the Iran backed Houthi rebels in Yemen for the attack, and the Houthis claimed they carried it out.
Washington opens a new front on land
Washington answered with a new military tool of its own. On Saturday, CENTCOM announced the creation of Task Force Iron Gate, a unit of about 20 people. Its job is to disrupt Iranian weapons shipments, sanctioned goods and illicit money moving across Iran’s land borders and the Caspian Sea. The announcement extends the American pressure campaign beyond the sea lanes that have dominated the conflict. It came one day after US forces struck an Iranian air defense system near Qeshm Island, a clash we covered in our report on the Qeshm strike and the Qatar talks.
Why oil fell on Monday
Oil traders spent the weekend watching the same headlines. Then they listened to the president. In an interview with CNN that aired Sunday, Trump said renewed strikes on Iran were “highly unlikely” as long as negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz continued to make progress, the Wall Street Journal reported. On Monday, Brent crude settled down 5.85 percent at $92.57 a barrel, its lowest level since August. The US benchmark, West Texas Intermediate, fell 4.4 percent to $86.85 a barrel. The drop extended a brutal stretch for oil bulls. Brent had already lost about 16 percent the week before, its steepest weekly fall since the start of the COVID pandemic, according to Reuters.
The calm may not hold. Trump met the prime minister of Qatar, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, at the White House on Monday to discuss Doha’s mediation between Washington and Tehran. But Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said talks with Washington had made no progress, and on Tuesday the Saudi led coalition said its air defenses had intercepted two more Houthi missiles aimed at Riyadh, according to Reuters. For now, the market is betting that diplomacy wins. The missiles have not stopped flying. Follow the story in our News coverage.
Sources: Associated Press; Reuters; Wall Street Journal; US Central Command statements; UK Maritime Trade Operations reports.