A drone strike on gas vessels in Egypt’s Mediterranean port of Damietta signaled a possible latest front within the U.S.-Iran war, raising the prospect of threats to navigation through the Suez Canal, a final remaining secure export route for Saudi oil.
The Egyptian cabinet said on Thursday that an initial investigation showed that an unidentified drone caused a fireplace on Wednesday on two vessels at Damietta port, near the Suez Canal, which links the Mediterranean with the Red Sea.
No group has claimed responsibility, the cupboard said, adding that authorities were taking measures to guard Egypt’s national security.
Trading sources accustomed to the incident said the drone hit U.S.-owned gas storage tanker Energos Winter, causing a fireplace that spread to a different vessel.
Overnight, the U.S. military said it struck Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ military command centers and drone facilities after Tehran fired at U.S. forces within the region.
Iranian state media, quoting the Guards, said three civilians were killed and two children wounded in U.S. strikes on Qeshm Island, while three Guards members were killed in Zanjan province.
The governor of Khuzestan province, cited by Iranian state media, said two student dormitory complexes within the southwestern city of Ahvaz were damaged within the overnight attacks.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it struck the U.S.-run Azraq base in Jordan in response to the U.S. strikes.
“With the assistance of God, the aggressor can be punished today,” it said earlier in a press release carried by state media.
The Pentagon didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment about damage on the Azraq base.
U.S. bases in Jordan have recently grow to be primary Iranian targets. Jordan’s armed forces said earlier on Thursday they’d intercepted five Iranian missiles.
An Iranian attack also hit a constructing owned by a Chinese company in northern Kuwait, killing a employee and inflicting significant damage, Kuwait’s Defence Ministry said.
In a primary within the five-month war, Saudi Arabia on Wednesday publicly joined strikes alongside U.S. forces, targeting Iran-aligned groups in eastern Iraq, in retaliation for drone attacks on Saudi oil targets launched from Iraq.
After the joint attacks, Saudi Arabia’s defense minister met U.S. Vice President JD Vance in Washington on Wednesday to induce the Trump administration to not escalate the conflict further, two sources told Reuters.
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The war began in February, when the U.S. and Israel launched a bombing campaign in Iran that U.S. President Donald Trump said would last only just a few weeks. A short lived ceasefire agreement in June collapsed amid renewed fighting over the Strait of Hormuz, an important waterway that Iran says it now controls.
The newest strikes in Iraq and Egypt threatened to attract more Middle Eastern countries into the conflict after the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen declared a naval blockade last week on Saudi Arabia, threatening the choice Red Sea route for its oil to Asia.
Attacks on ships by the Houthi militants prompted London’s marine insurance market to widen its “high risk” zone within the Red Sea to incorporate more of the coast adjoining to Saudi Arabian ports.
Trump said he would hit Iran hard for firing missiles at U.S. forces, but that Washington was also still searching for a peace deal to finish a conflict that has roiled global energy and finance markets.
Oil prices soared greater than 8 per cent on Wednesday, before easing 1 per cent on Thursday in volatile trade, with benchmark Brent crude trading just under the US$90 mark.
Iran controls crucial shipping waterway
Iran said on Wednesday that it struck three tankers attempting to transit through the Strait of Hormuz along an unauthorized route.
Nevertheless, a QatarEnergy-controlled liquefied natural gas tanker exited the strait overnight, the primary such vessel recorded by ship-tracking data leaving the waterway since July 11. Iran’s semi-official news agency Fars said Tehran had given its permission for the tanker to pass.
Oman has presented Iran with a plan backed by Gulf states to administer the Strait of Hormuz, including collecting voluntary fees for using it, sources told Reuters on Tuesday.
Tehran rejected the Omani proposal on Wednesday, but Iran’s semi-official ILNA news agency quoted the country’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei as saying that talks with Oman over the Strait of Hormuz were continuing.
After the war exposed gaps in Iran’s ability to guard military sites and strategic infrastructure, Tehran was expected to receive inside weeks a primary shipment out of as much as 400 Chinese-made shoulder-fired air-defense missile launchers, three sources accustomed to the deal told Reuters. Iran’s Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment, while China’s Foreign Ministry denied the report.