Bahrain sounded its missile alert sirens on Tuesday, July 21, as Iran fired a fresh barrage at the island kingdom, widening a war that has now entered its tenth day of United States air raids, choked off shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and sent Brent crude past USD 88 a barrel, even as Tehran’s interior minister landed in Islamabad for Pakistani-brokered talks aimed at salvaging a collapsed interim deal with Washington.
The strike on Bahrain, which hosts the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, came hours after Iranian forces attacked a tanker off Oman and forced its crew to abandon ship, and after the US Central Command said it had hit Iranian command centres, missile and drone launch sites and air defence installations across five provinces.
The two countries have been trading fire for 10 days over control of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas moves in peacetime.
The sustained American bombardment has not loosened Tehran’s grip on the waterway. Iranian state media reported explosions in Fars, Hormozgan, Ilam, Kerman, and Sistan and Baluchistan provinces.
Central Command said American forces remained prepared to hold Iran responsible for what it called unwarranted aggression against civilian mariners transiting the strait, and released fresh footage of the bombing runs.
Traffic through the channel has slowed to a trickle. Lloyd’s List Intelligence said just three ships made the passage on Sunday, July 19.
The British military’s UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) centre said a tanker was attacked early on Tuesday in the strait off Oman, forcing the crew to abandon the vessel. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard claimed that attack, along with two others on Monday, July 20. The UKMTO separately reported a previously unknown attack on a ship a day earlier.
The route around Oman is the one the US military has been urging shipping to use to stay clear of Iranian control.
Tehran has also struck at US allies across West Asia. Jordan’s military said on Tuesday that five drones and three missiles fired at the country were shot down.
The US military identified two soldiers killed in Jordan, where a third person is missing. It separately confirmed another death in Iraq on Saturday, July 18, during what it described as the controlled detonation of a downed Iranian drone.
President Donald Trump warned on social media on Monday that Iran would pay many times over for every American soldier killed. He was scheduled to attend a ceremony at Dover Air Force Base on Tuesday evening, where the remains of at least one service member were due to arrive.
The Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, Sean Parnell, said nearly 100 service members have been injured since strikes resumed on July 7, and that 96 per cent have returned to duty. Most of the injuries were minor concussions, he said on X, rejecting a New York Times report that the Pentagon had held back information on troop casualties from Iranian strikes.
The Defence Casualty Analysis System, the military’s own clearinghouse for conflict deaths and injuries, had still not been updated with the latest attacks as of Monday night.
Iranian authorities said on Sunday that at least 50 people have been killed and 517 wounded in the current round of American strikes. Seventeen US service members have died since the war began on February 28.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels announced a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia on Monday, threatening to block shipping between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden by targeting the Bab el-Mandeb, a chokepoint comparable to Hormuz. The rebels said the move was retaliation for an attack last week on Sanaa International Airport, which they blamed on Riyadh.
With Hormuz effectively shut, Saudi Arabia has been leaning on a pipeline to the Red Sea to move millions of barrels of oil to market. The Houthis have demonstrated their reach in those waters before, attacking more than 100 vessels over months during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
The Saudi military said it would keep the waterway open. Spokesman Maj Gen Turki al-Malki said threats against transiting vessels would be dealt with swiftly and firmly, and amounted to acts of maritime piracy.
Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni arrived in Islamabad on Monday for two days of talks with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and other officials, as Pakistan intensified efforts to revive the interim agreement signed last month. What shape a fresh deal might take remains unclear.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday that Washington remains open to negotiations, but insisted any such opening would have to be real. If those in Tehran willing to do something productive gained control of the negotiations, he said, it would be a positive development, adding that this was not where matters stood.
As the fighting has intensified, both sides have struck civilian infrastructure that millions depend on.
The US State Department issued a fresh advisory warning Americans that Iran and groups aligned with it may target American interests overseas or sites associated with the United States.
The escalation has driven up energy prices in recent weeks, with Brent crude trading above USD 88 a barrel on Tuesday, squeezing American households ahead of midterm elections this autumn.
(With inputs from Associated Press)
This post was last modified on July 21, 2026 3:38 pm