According to sources cited by The Atlantic, Driscoll recently “brought up concerns with the administration surrounding Army transformation and readiness and Hegseth’s blocking those efforts specifically by firing the generals who were responsible”. His mission was seemingly unsuccessful.

Nevertheless, US President Donald Trump was said to be “surprised and concerned” about the number of the cuts to the department and the seniority of those who have left, The Atlantic reports.

At least 18 commodity vessels transited through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on Tuesday, ‌another major maritime chokepoint in the Middle ​East, with seven vessels entering and ‌11 exiting.

This compares with ⁠an average of around 24 ships ⁠going through Bab el-Mandeb over the past 10 days.

Among the ‌vessels travelling ​through the strait were ‌two Aframax tankers and one ​Suezmax tanker.

The United States said it had launched a series of air strikes against ‌Iran on Tuesday, prompting Iranian ‌retaliation, in the most serious escalation of the conflict between the two countries in weeks.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ⁠said in a statement the US attacks would “tighten the lock” on the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway that carried about one-fifth of global oil consumption before the conflict.

The US military struck two Iranian government tankers during Tuesday’s attacks on Iran, Axios reported.

A US official said the strikes were carried out under a new “tanker for tanker” policy approved by president Donald Trump in response to Iranian attacks on tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

According to the report, the tankers were anchored off Iran’s coast, north of the US naval blockade line.

The missiles hit the engine rooms of the vessels.US officials said around 100 targets were struck on Tuesday, including defence sites, radar systems and anti-ship cruise missile launchers.

It was the first time the US military had targeted Iranian tankers in retaliation for Iranian attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

Four ​commodity vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, down from 10 a day earlier and below the 10-day average of ⁠around 13, preliminary shipping data showed on Wednesday.

The four vessels that transited were one very large crude carrier, one Panamax tanker, one Kamsarmax carrier and one intermediate ⁠tanker, initial data ​from shiptracker ⁠Kpler showed at 0200 GMT.

Of the four vessels, one was entering the strait ⁠and three were leaving.

The figures could change as ​some ⁠ships typically switch off transponders ‌during the voyage.

Seven people have been killed in US missile strikes on three locations in Iran’s Khuzestan province, the province’s deputy governor for security affairs said, according to the IRNA news agency.

Eight others were wounded in the strikes, IRNA reported.

Buyer’s remorse is rising among Americans who voted for US President Donald Trump in 2024 — vividly illustrating the “clear, consistent signs” that his political base is crumbling, according to survey results released Monday.

“There are no takebacks in electoral politics, but around 15 percent of Trump voters now tell us they might or would vote differently or not vote at all if they had it to do over again”, the poll’s co-director, Alexander Theodoridis, said in a prepared statement.

“This is hardly a mass exodus from the Trump tent, but is enough that it certainly could’ve been decisive against Trump in what was a relatively close 2024 election”, Theodoridis added. “More notably, though, there are now clear, consistent signs of an erosion trend“.

The Iranian Red Crescent said four people, including a young child, have been killed in a US attack after shrapnel struck a home where a wedding celebration was taking place in Sirik in southern Iran.

The US had resumed strikes against Iran following “recent attempted attacks” by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, Centcom said.

Iran retaliated by launching attacks at US military bases in Iraq and Jordan, according to local state media and the Jordanian Armed Forces. Attacks were also reported in Kuwait and Bahrain.

Esmaeil Baghaei, the spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry, said the “brutal” attack hit a residence in the city of Kuhestak early on Wednesday.

Reza Shahidiyan, governor of Sirik county, later told state broadcaster IRIB that 63 others were wounded, including 50 women and children. All the injured were taken to a hospital in the nearby city of Minab and were in “stable condition”, he said.

Donald Trump has insisted that the US has “almost total control” of the Strait of Hormuz.

“I like our position now much better, with almost total control of the Hormuz Strait, and their economy totally collapsing”, the US president said of Iran on Truth Social earlier Wednesday morning. “They are just playing out the inevitable. When are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight?”

Maritime traffic in the vital oil waterway has remained muted during the war, with just five ships passing through in the last 24 hours, according to the Hormuz Strait Monitor.