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Two oil tankers carrying Saudi crude to Asia reversed course in the Red Sea on Tuesday following threats from Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis, as a widening Middle East conflict disrupted shipping through two of the world’s most critical energy chokepoints.
The US military bombed targets in Iran for the eleventh consecutive night. these goals say These included aircraft hangars and drone storage areas. Residents of Tehran reported hearing explosions in the early hours of Wednesday as Iran activated its air defenses over the capital, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency said. Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported that explosions rocked the provinces of Bushehr, East Azerbaijan, Hamadan, Hormozgan, Khuzestan and Sistan and Balochistan.
Iran previously attacked US sites in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan, and a tanker was hit in the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf.
Iran said it attacked Amazon’s infrastructure in Bahrain, where the US technology company operates a regional data center. Amazon had no comment and Reuters was unable to verify the report.
The Houthis, who control northern and western Yemen, including the coast at the mouth of the Red Sea, announced a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia on Monday. That opened a potential new front in the war that has killed thousands of people across the Gulf region since it began on Feb. 28 with U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran.
In a letter to shippers, the Houthis threatened to attack any ships loading or unloading Saudi oil.
US President Donald Trump said the Houthis had not yet closed the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the “Gate of Tears” leading to the Red Sea, and he threatened to take action against them if they did.
“If something like this happens, we’ll take care of it,” Trump said.
18 US soldiers have now been killed in the war
Trump also confirmed that 18 U.S. soldiers have been killed so far, including four in Iranian attacks on U.S. military bases in Jordan and Iraq in recent days, in a war that is unpopular among Americans and others hit by rising global energy costs.
The Houthi announcement already seemed to be having an impact. Two tankers that had just loaded Saudi Arabian crude oil destined for China and India at Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port of Yanbu made a U-turn on Tuesday and headed toward the Suez Canal rather than through the Bab el-Mandeb toward the Indian Ocean.
Because the war closed the Strait of Hormuz, which leads from the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea served as the main alternative route for millions of barrels per day of Saudi oil, which was diverted by pipeline through Yanbu.
Oil prices rose more than 2 percent on Tuesday, with Brent crude hovering above $91 a barrel and U.S. gasoline back above $4 a gallon.
Trump renews his threat to attack nuclear facilities
U.S. Central Command said it hit Iranian military command centers, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and air defense systems in the week-and-a-half-long strikes.
In June, CBC senior international correspondent Margaret Evans and videographer Lyza Sale were granted rare access to reports from Iran. Where they could travel and what they could report on was strictly controlled, but Iranian authorities had no editorial influence over the content and were not given access to CBC News material before publication.
On Tuesday, Trump renewed his threats to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities in Natanz “pretty soon.” In June 2025, he said the facility, buried in a mountain range, had been “totally destroyed” after the US military bombed it that month. Iran promised to take revenge.
Recent U.S. strikes on Iran left 50 civilians dead and 500 injured, a health ministry official said.
U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told senators during a hearing that the conflict, which Congress did not authorize, has cost $37.5 billion so far, and he urged them to approve another $70 billion in “supplemental” funding, in part to replenish depleted missile supplies.
Test escalation limits
The United States and Iran have been testing the limits of escalation since the collapse of a weeks-long tentative ceasefire agreement this month.
Iran launched renewed attacks on Tuesday in the Persian Gulf, where recent attacks on desalination plants have raised concerns about water shortages in desert countries that rely almost entirely on removing salt from seawater for drinking water supplies.
Kuwait said it was responding to a drone and missile attack on Tuesday. Kuwait has reported attacks in recent days that have damaged power generation at plants that also produce fresh water.
Iranian state media reported that Iranian forces also carried out attacks on US military facilities in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan.
Maritime safety agency UKMTO said on Tuesday that a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz reported being hit by a projectile, forcing its crew to abandon ship and board a lifeboat.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard also said two oil tankers caught fire after explosions as they attempted to pass through the strait’s southern shipping route.
The US has encouraged ships to use the south lane. Iran is instead calling for the use of an alternative northern route near its coast, where it plans to eventually charge for transit.
During the war, Saudi Arabia was able to partially avoid disruption to shipping by instead sending oil to Yanbu on the Red Sea. However, a complete closure of this alternative route by the Houthis could further reduce global oil supplies by leaving most Saudi oil exports trapped.
