US military says it disabled tanker trying to breach blockade amid new wave of strikes on Iran – Middle East crisis live

The Guardian reports that US Central Command says its aircraft fired missiles into an oil tanker's smokestack in the Strait of Hormuz, disabling a vessel it says was trying to breach a blockade, as American forces struck Iran for a fourth consecutive day. According to the Guardian, President Trump again threatened to hit Iran's power plants amid an impasse over the strait, while US strikes targeted the southern port city of Bushehr, home to the country's only civilian nuclear plant, for a second day running. Iranian state news agency IRNA, quoting the governor of Bushehr, said three sites in the city were attacked, and local officials reported that more than thirty civilians have been killed in the recent strikes on southern Iran. The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world's most important oil shipping routes, and the escalating exchanges leave the wider region on edge.

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