Iran’s Revolutionary Guard says the 2 tankers struck mines after allegedly following a U.S.-backed route through the strait of Hormuz . Iran reportedly has been mining the route close too Oman to force tankers to use its own route
Here is the latest :
- Iran said it responded to new U.S. strikes on Tuesday by launching missile and drone attacks on U.S. allies.
- Jordan’s armed forces reported intercepting 10 ballistic missiles, and Bahrain said it intercepted Iranian drones.
- This comes a week after Iran urged Arabs and Muslims to unite against the US and Israel
- U.S. forces launched strikes on targets connected to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, U.S. Central Command said, the latest round of strikes as the two countries return to active hostilities in the six-month war.
- President Trump said the strikes were carried out in retaliation for Iran attempting to place more sea mines in the Strait of Hormuz, and for the Islamic Republic targeting an American base in Jordan earlier this week. Mr. Trump warned Iran would be “hit much harder” if it continues to retaliate.
- Trump urges Iranians to “rise up and fight“
In a social media post defending the U.S.’ standing in Iran, President Trump wrote: “When are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight?”
The president also wrote that the Iranian regime is “just playing out the inevitable,” with its “economy totally collapsing,” and said: “I couldn’t care less if they sign a worthless, to them, agreement.”
Mr. Trump’s call for the Iranian people to “rise up” echoes his message hours after the war began in late February, when he urged Iranians to “take over your government.” He also encouraged Iranian protesters prior to the start of the war.
Later on, though, as a war that was initially expected to take a few weeks stretched on for months, Mr. Trump backed away from calling for the Iranian regime’s ouster, saying he “never cared about regime change” and considered the deaths of top Iranian officials to be a kind of regime change.
Iranians urged to reduce gas consumption amid U.S. blockade
A top Iranian official called on citizens to curb their gas consumption on Tuesday, as the country faces difficulty importing enough fuel to meet demand due to the U.S. naval blockade.
“Of course, part of the responsibility for this high consumption does not lie with our people; it lies with our industry,” parliament speaker and top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a televised address. “But in any case, what is clear is that we need to save gasoline in our consumption.”
Iranian rial hits record low as US dollar breaks 2.2 million mark
The rial has lost 63% of its value against the dollar since March, with the euro hitting 2.55 million rials and gold coins changing hands at 2.26 billion. Iran’s central bank governor pledged a $2 billion injection while acknowledging inflation had placed “heavy pressure on people’s livelihoods.”
The US dollar broke above 2.1 million Iranian rials on Tehran’s free market on Wednesday, setting a new record as the rial lost around 60% of its value against the dollar since the start of the Iranian calendar year in March — when the dollar traded at approximately 1.35 million rials.
In 1978 , months before the Shah was overthrown by the Islamic regime, the US dollar was worth less than 70 rials Many analysts think Iran is heading in the same direction as Venezuela whose currency collapsed . It takes over a billion old Bolivars to buy one US dollar .
Iran’s parliament approved a plan to remove four zeros from the national currency, the rial, to combat years of severe inflation and plunging exchange rates.
