BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 31. US forces struck two rocket launchers on Iran’s Larak Island on Sunday, a US official said, marking the first known American strikes on the Islamic republic since late July TurkicWorld reports via ArabNews
The small Iranian island in the Strait of Hormuz near the strategic port of Bandar Abbas overlooks shipping lanes at the mouth of the Gulf, giving it a key role in tension over Iran, maritime security and global energy supplies.
Iran responded by launching an attack on two US bases in Jordan, Iranian media said.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards shot down a US MQ-9 drone over the Strait of Hormuz with air defense missiles, causing it to crash into Gulf waters, the Mehr news agency reported on Monday, citing an IRGC statement.
Iran’s energy hub of Kharg Island is being blown to smithereens, US President Donald Trump said on Sunday, after forces hit two rocket launchers on another island in the first known American strikes on the Islamic republic since late July.
Attacking Kharg, which handled 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports before the war launched by US and Israeli attacks on February 28, would severely disrupt its energy trade and put huge pressure on its economy.
“Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!! President DJT,” Trump said on social media, but gave no further details.
The White House and the US Defense Department did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment outside regular business hours.
Financial violence
The return to hostilities follows weeks in which the Trump administration has stepped up efforts to punish Tehran and its business partners with costly economic sanctions, shifting away from military options.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Sunday new secondary sanctions were likely to be unveiled weekly in the effort to pressure Iran, with an initial focus on banks.
“This is going to be financial violence if we have to,” Bessent said in the interview. “We are showing people that we know who you are, you know who you are, and this has got to stop.”
Bessent spoke with the news agencies ahead of Group of 20 meetings in Asheville, North Carolina, where he will meet individually with his counterparts from the world’s major and developing economies to encourage cooperation against Iran.
The Trump administration recently signaled that it would shift from military strikes to economic pressure during a war that recently reached the six-month mark, promising what it called an “economic D-Day” against a country that has already weathered decades of punishing sanctions.
Sanctions on Iran’s trading partners
In addition, the administration has mostly relied on warnings rather than new sanctions against Iran’s trading partners. There’s also the question of how Trump will handle China, which is Iran’s biggest trading partner and leading buyer of its oil.
Bessent told the AP he would speak to his Chinese counterparts at the G20 meeting and “all options are on the table” in terms of sanctioning Beijing for its continued purchases.
But he rejected the idea that the administration was reluctant to confront China, calling it “a completely false narrative that the media picked up on.” He insisted that China and the US agree on the need to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
Treasury’s first official action in this campaign of economic pressure was a proposed rulemaking on Friday, which would, if finalized, sever the Emirati branches of Banque Misr, Egypt’s second-largest bank, from access to the US financial system.
In stopping short of imposing sanctions on the Egyptian bank, the Republican administration appeared to be signaling its reluctance to penalize major trading partners that do business with Iran, including China and India.
