Middle East latest: US launches fresh strikes, Iran threatens to block more trade routes amid Trump warning

Iran has threatened to block more key trade routes across the Middle East as the United States launches a fresh round of strikes against military targets and Donald Trump issues a stern warning if a deal isn’t settled.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG) warned the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed until the US halted what it described as its “Acts of aggression”, while also threatening to shut down other regional oil and gas exports.

The warning comes as the US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) said it carried out a second wave of Wednesday strikes on Iranian targets.

“Iranian military capabilities used to threaten vessels freely transiting through the Strait of Hormuz,” it wrote on X.

“The US military is holding Iran accountable at the Commander in Chief’s direction.”

Earlier, it said US forces has fired off 90-minute rounds of attacks at Greater Tunb Island that morning.

CENTCOM also said its forces turned away two vessels attempting to pass through its newly reinstated blockade of Iranian ports.

As tensions escalate in the region, Donald Trump issued a fresh threat to Iran, warning the US could “finish it off”.

“We’ll find out whether or not we settle with them or we just finish it off,” Mr Trump said while speaking at the US Army War College in Philadelphia.

The ongoing military operations are impacting oil prices as ships are barred from transiting the Strait, a vital artery for exports.

Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, closed at a one-month high at $US84.95 a barrel on Wednesday.

In a statement issued hours after the Iranian Mehr news agency reported that US projectiles had hit a location on Iran’s Hengam Island in the strait, Iran’s top negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said Iranian security depended on maintaining what he called “Iranian arrangements” in the strait.

“We are in an essential and existential war with America,” Qalibaf said in a statement.

Prior to the war, Iran had not asserted the authority to act as a gatekeeper over the Strait.

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that Iran badly wants to settle with the United States, adding that the US would decide whether or not to take such a step.

Trump said on Tuesday that US negotiators had been in touch with their Iranian counterparts to tell them “you better make a deal”.

Three US officials told Reuters that US strikes aimed at forcing open the strait are also targeting Iranian military capabilities the US would want to destroy before executing more complex operations.

Shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has dropped to a fraction of its pre-war activity.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Wednesday it had struck US military targets in the region, including in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan.

It also threatened on Wednesday to shut off more regional energy exports, saying the US “must brace for the closure of all other export corridors that benefit the US and its allies”.

An interim ceasefire deal signed last month was meant to lead to further negotiations, including on Iran’s nuclear program and to a permanent truce, but a return to talks has faltered.

“We have no plans for negotiations at the moment and are focused on defence,” Tasnim news agency quoted Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei as saying.

- with Reuters