US expands airstrikes into northern Iran and disables merchant ship

The United States intensified its strikes targeting Iran early Thursday, hitting targets further north as American forces also fired into a ship it accused of trying to break its naval blockade on the Islamic Republic. The escalation marks a deepening of the conflict that began on 28 February 2026, as both nations exchange fire across the Middle East, effectively dismantling an interim agreement intended to suppress hostilities.

Strikes also reached into areas around Iran’s capital, Tehran, for the first time of this latest round of violence. It also reported American attacks targeted Semnan province, home to Iran’s ballistic missile production and space program. Iranian media also reported strikes Thursday morning around the provinces of Hamedan, Hormozgan, Khuzestan, Lorestan, Markazi, and Sistan and Baluchistan. Another American strike Wednesday targeted a barracks for Iran’s 388th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, which operates tanks and armoured vehicles, in Sistan and Baluchestan province, Iranian state television reported. The report said Americans fired at least 13 missiles in the attack and the seven dead included conscripts and career soldiers. A number of troops were wounded.

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The U.S. Military said it opened fire on the Curacao-flagged oil tanker Belma sailing toward Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export terminal in the Persian Gulf. After the ship “ignored multiple warnings,” a U.S. Aircraft disabled the merchant vessel by firing a missile into the ship’s smokestack. Already, Iranian officials say U.S. Strikes have killed more than 35 people and wounded over 300 others.

Iran retaliated Thursday with missile and drone attacks on Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait, authorities in those countries home to U.S. Forces said.

The latest round of fighting is focused on the Strait of Hormuz. When the U.S. And Israel launched the war on Iran on Feb. 28, Tehran effectively closed the strait to shipping traffic, a move that sent the price of oil, fertilizer and many other goods soaring far beyond the region and gave Iran major leverage in negotiations. Col. Ebrahim Zolfaghari, a spokesperson for the Iranian military’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, said, “Under no circumstances and in no way will we allow America, as a foreign and extra-regional country, to interfere in the Strait of Hormuz,” he added. “This is Iran’s invincible red line.”

“All the infrastructure in the region will be crushed under the steel blows of the powerful armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran” should Trump’s threat be carried out, Zolfaghari said.

Trump again insisted Iran was ready to strike a peace deal, but he did not elaborate. “They don’t like what we’re doing, and they do want to settle. We’ll find out whether or not we settle with them, or we just finish it off,” he said Wednesday at the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania. Trump separately said on social media that Tehran made a goodwill gesture by releasing an American citizen wrongly detained in Iran since 2024. Human rights lawyer Jared Genser released a statement identifying the detainee as his client Dena Karari, a U.S.-Iranian citizen who runs a nonprofit and was charged with espionage. Iran did not immediately acknowledge the release and her case was not publicly known, as is sometimes the case with detentions in the Islamic Republic.

Iran’s parliament speaker and lead negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, said Iran was prepared for a fuller military confrontation if the U.S. Does not live up to the terms of the interim deal.

The price for Brent crude oil, the international standard, traded above $85 a barrel on Thursday, more than 15% higher than the price before the war, but still well below the nearly $120 reached at the height of the conflict.