TEHRAN: Explosions thundered out in Tehran on Tuesday after the Pentagon chief warned US strikes on Iran would reach their highest intensity since the start of the war in the Middle East.
The war has been a shock to energy markets, and Iran has vowed that no crude exports would leave the Gulf if the United States and Israel kept up their bombardment. But the war has shown no sign of relenting, with AFP journalists reporting three explosions in Tehran on Tuesday evening, with no immediate information available about the intended targets.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had earlier told a news conference at the Pentagon that Tuesday would “be yet again our most intense day of strikes inside Iran — the most fighters, the most bombers”.
Volatile oil prices again veered sharply on Tuesday, sliding after a senior US official announced the navy had escorted a tanker through the strategic Strait of Hormuz. Iran began attacking shipping in the strait following the February 28 US-Israeli strikes that killed its supreme leader and triggered the regional conflict.
The Israeli military announced a new wave of attacks on Tehran and Beirut, where AFPTV footage showed smoke rising from the southern stronghold of Iran’s Lebanese ally Hezbollah. And Iran’s Revolutionary Guards announced a fresh salvo of missiles against Israeli cities and US targets in the region.
Oil prices had surged following the Iranian attacks on shipping, strikes on oil depots in Iran and attacks on energy infrastructure in wealthy Gulf countries, previously seen as safe havens in a turbulent Middle East. “The Iranian armed forces… will not allow the export of a single litre of oil from the region to the hostile side and its partners until further notice,” a Guards spokesman said.
“It is we who will determine the end of the war,” the Guards, seen as close to Iran’s new supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, said in a separate statement carried by Iranian media.
Iran’s parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned on X that attacks on the Islamic republic’s infrastructure would be met “with the rule of ‘an eye for an eye’, without compromise, without exception”.
Experts warned the economic outlook remains extremely volatile.
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