US Vice President JD Vance outlines Washington’s key objectives in the Iran conflict as keeping energy prices stable for Americans, preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons and securing a stronger US position.
He says that Washington’s aims in the Iran war are “twofold”: to stabilise American energy prices by ensuring oil can flow through Gulf countries again, and to stop Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday warned that Washington can continue with its naval blockade of Iranian ports “indefinitely” and for as long as needed.
Hegseth made these remarks while addressing reporters in Panama City and said, “Indefinitely, the United States Navy can maintain a blockade like that because we’ll rotate ships in and out, as we have, and we’ll continue to.”
Elsewhere in Lebanon, local media reported an Israeli drone dropped a bomb overnight on a house in the town of Kafra in the Tyre district in the south, causing only material damage.
Local media reported, that Israeli forces carried out a large explosion in the Mashaa al-Mansouri area around midnight local time alongside the dropping of explosive containers, while machinegun fire was also reported on the outskirts of Majdal Zoun and al-Mansouri and in surrounding valleys.
A series of large explosions was also reported in Beit Yahoun, Hadatha and Qounine, with the blasts heard as far away as coastal villages. Israeli warplanes and drones continued to fly overhead, the report added.
Clashes between Iran-backed Houthi rebels and government forces in Yemen raged overnight and into Thursday, raising fears that the country’s civil war could reignite and open another front in the Middle East.
Visuals of a massive oil spill reaching the coastline of Iran have surfaced on the internet. This oil spill threatens to become one of the world’s worst in years after spreading largely unchecked for several weeks, experts say.
Iran has blamed the “foreign military aggression” for the oil pollution along the shores of Qeshm islands. Taking to X, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, in a veiled reference, accused the military strikes by the US and its allied partners in the region of the oil spillage, arguing that the environmental damage highlights the need for Iran, as a key coastal state, to establish and enforce a management framework for the strategic waterways.
“The oil pollution of the shores of Qeshm Island stems from the repercussions of foreign military aggression in the region. Such damages inflicted upon the environment of the Iranian coastal areas of the Persian Gulf further underscore the pressing necessity for Iran, as the coastal state, to define and implement a management mechanism for the Strait of Hormuz,” Gharibabadi said in the post.