WASHINGTON (AP) —President Donald Trump said he has demanded about seven countries send warships to keep the Strait of Hormuz open as Iranian strikes continued to rain down on Gulf countries Monday.
Dubai International Airport, the world's busiest, gradually restarted operations after a drone struck a fuel tank and started a fire. Authorities said it was quickly contained and no injuries were reported.
Tehran has accused the United States without evidence of using “ports, docks and hideouts” in the United Arab Emirates to launch strikes on Kharg Island, home to the main terminal handling Iran’s oil exports evidence, as oil prices soared. Brent crude oil was trading near $105 per barrel on Monday.
Trump said the U.S. is negotiating with countries heavily reliant on Middle East crude to join a coalition to police the waterway where about one-fifth the world’s traded oil normally flows, but declined to name them.
Israeli strikes have deepened Lebanon's humanitarian crisis, with more than 850 people killed and over 850,000 displaced.
Here is the latest:
American efforts to protect Strait of Hormuz continue, US military commander says
The top U.S. military commander in the Middle East says American forces are zeroing in on Iran’s threats to freighters carrying oil and natural gas through a vital chokepoint in the Persian Gulf.
“We will continue to rapidly deplete Iran’s ability to threaten freedom of navigation in and around the Strait of Hormuz,” Admiral Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, said in a video posted to X on Monday.
Iranian strikes on commercial vessels have effectively stopped shipping traffic in the waterway, through which a fifth of the world’s oil is transported. That has dramatically increased the price of oil and put pressure on Washington to do something to ease the pain for consumers.