The US shifted from nighttime raids to broad daylight strikes on Iran on Wednesday. US Central Command said its latest operation hit coastal defense systems plus cruise missile storage and launch sites on Greater Tunb Island, a strategically important spot in the Strait of Hormuz, the Telegraph reports. Most of the US attacks over the last week happened at night but Wednesday's bombing raids began at around 1:30pm local time. The action followed Iranian missile launches earlier in the day, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claiming it targeted US military facilities in Kuwait, Jordan, and Bahrain. Iranian state media said sites supporting the US Navy's Fifth Fleet in Bahrain were among them.
The US also said it enforced a naval blockade by disabling an empty, Curacao-flagged oil tanker after the vessel allegedly ignored warnings and headed toward Iran's Kharg Island, the Guardian reports. A US aircraft fired Hellfire missiles into the ship's smokestack, leaving it stopped and no longer bound for Iran, Central Command said on X. Central Command said that in the 24 hours since the blockade was reinstated on Tuesday, US forces have "redirected two compliant commercial vessels and disabled one non-compliant vessel."
After the blockade was reinstated, the IRGC warned that the US can "expect the closure of other oil and gas export routes that serve the interests of the United States and its allies," the BBC reports. "The export of oil and gas from the region will be either for everyone or for no one," it said. President Trump, meanwhile, said Iran was ready to make a deal. "They don't like what we're doing, and they do want to settle," he said at a defense summit at the US Army War College in Pennsylvania, per the AP. "We'll find out whether or not we settle with them, or we just finish it off." On Tuesday, Trump threatened to bomb Iranian bridges and power plants unless Tehran returns to the negotiating table.
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