US forces bombed targets in the south and west of Iran overnight, while Iran targeted US sites in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan and a tanker was hit in the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf.
Iran said it had struck infrastructure belonging to Amazon in Bahrain, where the US tech company operates a regional data centre.
The Houthis, who control northern and western Yemen including the coast at the mouth of the Red Sea, announced a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia on Monday. This opened a potential new front in the war, which has killed thousands of people across the Gulf since it began on February 28 with US and Israeli attacks on Iran.
In a letter to shippers, the Houthis threatened to attack any ships that load or discharge Saudi oil.
US President Donald Trump said the Houthis had not yet shut the Bab el-Mandeb, the “Gate of Tears” strait leading into the Red Sea, and threatened to act against them if they did.
“So far it hasn’t happened,” Trump said. “If something like that happens, we take care of it.”
The US leader also confirmed that 18 US service members have been killed so far, including four in Iranian attacks on US military bases in Jordan and Iraq over the last few days, in a war that is unpopular among Americans and others affected by surging global energy costs.
The Houthi announcement already appeared to be having an impact. Two tankers which had just loaded Saudi crude bound for China and India at Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port of Yanbu made U-turns on Tuesday, heading towards the Suez Canal rather than out through the Bab el-Mandeb into the Indian Ocean.
“The developments represent the first confirmed changes to commercial tanker routing following the (Houthi) embargo and are likely to increase disruption to Saudi crude exports and regional shipping patterns,” British maritime risk management group Vanguard said on Tuesday.
With the war shutting the Strait of Hormuz leading out of the Gulf, the Red Sea has served as the main alternate route out for millions of barrels of Saudi oil per day, diverted by pipeline through Yanbu.
Oil prices gained more than 2 percent on Tuesday, with Brent crude hovering above US$91 a barrel and US gasoline back over $4 a gallon.
US Central Command said it had hit Iranian military command centres, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and air defence systems in its latest round of strikes, which have carried on nightly for more than a week and a half.
Explosions were heard around the city of Shiraz in southern Iran, state media said. Konarak and Chabahar on the southern coast and a civilian site outside the city of Abdanan in the west came under attack, media reports said.
On Tuesday, Trump renewed his threats to again attack Iran’s nuclear facilities at Natanz “pretty soon”, which he said in June 2025 had been “totally obliterated” after the US military bombed the facility, buried in a mountain range, that month. Iran promised it would retaliate.
Fifty civilians have been killed and 500 wounded in the recent US strikes on Iran, a health ministry official said. (Reuters)