US military says it disabled vessel in strait of Hormuz trying to breach reimposed blockade on Iranian ports
US Central Command has said US aircraft fired missiles into an oil tanker’s smokestack in the strait of Hormuz, disabling the vessel.
In an update on X, Centcom said:
US forces enforced naval blockade measures against Iran, July 15, by disabling an unladen oil tanker attempting to sail toward an Iranian port in the Arabian Gulf.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces observed Curacao-flagged M/T Belma transiting international waters toward Kharg Island.
The commercial vessel ignored multiple warnings as it attempted to violate the U.S. blockade. A U.S. aircraft disabled the vessel after firing hellfire missiles into the ship’s smokestack. The ship is no longer transiting to Iran.
Key events
The report of Iranian air defences being activated in Tehran comes as Donald Trump has warned he could widen attacks if the Islamic republic doesn’t return to talks.
Iranian state media has reported explosions in several cities including Bandar Abbas, Rask and Chabahar amid the latest wave of US strikes.
Earlier reports also cited blasts around southern sites including Qeshm and Bandar Imam Khomeini, while state media later said fresh US strikes hit Bushehr, home to Iran’s only civilian nuclear plant.
US Central Command said the latest strikes began at 1900 GMT on Wednesday and targeted Iranian capabilities used to threaten vessels in the strait of Hormuz. The US military also said one of its aircraft disabled an empty oil tanker trying to break the naval blockade of Iranian ports.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, meanwhile, said they targeted the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, where air sirens rang out as attacks against civilian targets were intercepted, while Jordan’s armed forces said they had downed three missiles from Iran, Agence France-Press reports.
In Iraq, Kurdish forces said the US-led coalition downed eight explosive-laden drones over Erbil, the capital of the northern Kurdistan region, where AFP journalists heard explosions and saw smoke near the US consulate. No casualties were reported.
“Next week it gets really bad for them,” Trump told Fox News, threatening to hit power plants and bridges unless Tehran returned to the negotiating table.
Iran’s air defences have been activated in Tehran to counter “hostile threats” on the Iranian capital, according to the country’s semi-official Mehr news agency.
In more news from the US, the House of Representatives has defeated a measure to slash military aid to Israel.
But more than 100 House Democrats voted for it in a significant rebuke of the longtime US ally as accusations that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government authorised genocide in Gaza continue to convulse the party ahead of US midterm elections in November.
See the full report here:
Dual US-Iranian citizen allowed to leave Iran
Robert Mackey
Donald Trump has thanked the country he is bombing, Iran, for allowing an American citizen he says was “wrongfully detained in December of 2024” to leave the country.
“She is now safely outside of Iran, and in good condition,” Trump wrote on social media, without naming the woman. “The United States of America appreciates this gesture of Goodwill by Iran!”
The woman is Dena Karari, a dual American and Iranian citizen, her lawyer Jared Genser announced on social media.
Genser said he was “excited to report” that Karari, who was banned from leaving Iran after visiting her family in 2024, and was interrogated but not detained, “is now safe and traveling back to the United States”.
“This would not have happened but for the extraordinary and relentless efforts of” Trump, he added.
The New York Times reported last year that an Iranian American woman who was first imprisoned and prevented from leaving the country in December 2024, but released from custody, “works for an American technological company and runs a charity for underprivileged children in Iran”. After the US joined Israel in bombing Iran in 2025, she was charged with espionage.
According to a 2023 Guardian profile of Genser, the human rights lawyer nicknamed “the extractor” has managed to free over 340 prisoners of conscience from 20 countries over the past two decades.
Further to the last post, Kuwait’s defence ministry said earlier its military had intercepted four cruise missiles and 21 hostile drones in Kuwaiti airspace since dawn on Wednesday, denouncing the “heinous Iranian aggression”.
There was material damage but no casualties, it posted on X.
It said the sounds of any new explosions were Kuwaiti air defences intercepting new attacks and urged people to follow safety instructions.
Kuwait’s army says it is intercepting drone attacks from Iran, while Bahrain says warning sirens of an air raid are also sounding there.
Both countries host American forces and have been targeted in Iran’s retaliatory strikes on US allies in the region.
A US missile attack has hit areas near an Iranian hospital dedicated to cancer patients in the western city of Ahvaz, according an official at Iran’s health ministry.
Hossein Kermanpour posted on X that some patients and their companions fled the Boghayi hospital amid the intense sounds and tremors and that “now only the most critically ill patients remain!”.
The sounds of two explosions have been heard east of the southern coastal city of Bandar Abbas, according to Iranian state media.
It earlier reported blasts in the port city and in Chabahar – another to the east – as well as in the western city of Ahvaz.
They come amid the latest US attacks the military says are targeting Iran’s capability to threaten ships transiting the strait of Hormuz.
The day so far
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The US military launched another wave of strikes against Iran, which Centcom said were “targeting Iranian military capabilities used to threaten vessels freely transiting through the strait of Hormuz”. Iranian state media reported explosions heard in the port cities of Bandar Abbas and Chabahar, and in Ahvaz, near the border with Iraq. It followed another wave of US strikes earlier on Wednesday during daylight hours.
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Centcom also said US aircraft fired missiles into an oil tanker’s smokestack in the strait of Hormuz, disabling the vessel. It said: “US forces observed Curacao-flagged M/T Belma transiting international waters toward Kharg Island. The commercial vessel ignored multiple warnings as it attempted to violate the U.S. blockade. A U.S. aircraft disabled the vessel after firing hellfire missiles into the ship’s smokestack. The ship is no longer transiting to Iran.”
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Donald Trump said he does not like giving deadlines when asked by reporters if Iran had a deadline before the United States starts attacking Iranian bridges. “I don’t like giving deadlines, but they pretty much know, they know the story … they better behave,” said, the US president, who has given Iran at least eight deadlines since he and Israel launched the war on 28 February.
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Iran’s top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said that if Iran did not benefit from its memorandum of understanding with the United States, “We have no reason to adhere to such an understanding.” Iran has “never welcomed war, nor do we now”, the parliamentary speaker said in a statement posted on Telegram. He called on Iranians to continue with their armed resistance, but to also “use the tools of diplomacy and negotiation to achieve and consolidate national interests”. More on his comments here.
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At least 30 people have been killed in southern Iran in US attacks in recent days and more than 260 people have been injured, Iran’s health ministry said.
US military says it disabled vessel in strait of Hormuz trying to breach reimposed blockade on Iranian ports
US Central Command has said US aircraft fired missiles into an oil tanker’s smokestack in the strait of Hormuz, disabling the vessel.
In an update on X, Centcom said:
US forces enforced naval blockade measures against Iran, July 15, by disabling an unladen oil tanker attempting to sail toward an Iranian port in the Arabian Gulf.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces observed Curacao-flagged M/T Belma transiting international waters toward Kharg Island.
The commercial vessel ignored multiple warnings as it attempted to violate the U.S. blockade. A U.S. aircraft disabled the vessel after firing hellfire missiles into the ship’s smokestack. The ship is no longer transiting to Iran.
Iranian state media has reported explosions being heard in the port cities of Bandar Abbas and Chabahar, and in Ahvaz, near the border with Iraq, since the US military launched a fresh wave of strikes a short while ago.
Further to that, as Donald Trump addresses the defence summit at the US Army War College, he has been touting what he said was nearly $10bn in promised investments in technology while his war on Iran has reduced the US supply of Tomahawk cruise missiles and Patriot and THAAD interceptors.
“We’re really doing well with Iran,” Trump said, addressing a roundtable of cabinet officials and business and defense industry leaders, adding, “Iran is unhappy right now.”
The White House told the Associated Press the summit is bringing together key leaders in defense and some of the largest global investors to spotlight the importance of national security and identify investment opportunities.
Summit attendees include JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, Blackstone President Jon Gray, Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet, General Dynamics CEO Phebe Novakovic, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, SpaceX director Antonio Gracias and artificial intelligence firm Palantir chief technology officer of analytics Shyam Sankar, McCormick’s office said.
Donald Trump is speaking at the Pennsylvania Defence and Innovation summit, where he has spoken about the war in Iran and speculated about whether a deal can be reached with the country or whether the US will “finish it off”.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran is not happy right now,” he told delegates at a presidential roundtable.
“They want to settle so badly. They don’t like what we’re doing. We’ll find out whether we want to settle with them or if we just finish it off.”
Trump said his defence secretary Pete Hegseth has been “really amazing”, but said US munitions manufacturers needed to work faster.
“We need a little more speed. We have the best quality in the world, but we need a little more speed,” he said.
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