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US, Iran trade fire in the Gulf, as Hegseth vows to destroy Iranian oil tankers
Saturday marked another significant escalation between Washington and Tehran, this time involving the direct targeting of US warships by Iran and a response by US military forces targeting Iran’s oil infrastructure.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, following the first round of Iranian attacks, said on social media, “It’s simple: if it shoots at US ships, we will destroy and sink their oil tankers. All they have to do is not shoot at the US.”
According to US Central Command, [in the first wave of attacks] the IRGC launched multiple ballistic missiles at two US warships. This includes an aircraft carrier as well as a guided missile destroyer. Both vessels evaded the attacks, and no US personnel were harmed, CENTCOM said.
It also confirmed that the US targeted three Iranian vessels. Two of those were disabled, while the third was completely destroyed after the crew of that vessel was ordered to abandon ship.
The language from US officials has been more measured than it had been months ago at the height of this conflict. CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper said Washington “intends to impose an economic cost on the IRGC while defending American forces”.
It’s very difficult now to see exactly what it will take to bring the US and Iran back to the negotiating table, and at the moment, the immediate question here is whether or not what happened on Saturday is going to remain a contained back-and-forth between these two countries, or if this is the start of a new cycle of military escalation, reports AL Jazeera.