President Donald Trump said on Thursday (June 11, 2026) the U.S. would continue to strike Iran “very hard” and threatened to seize Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export terminal in the Persian Gulf, after the two countries exchanged fire for a second consecutive night, jeopardising a two-month-old ceasefire.
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“The United States will be hitting Iran (Whose Navy, Air Force, Radar, Anti-Aircraft, and all other forms of Defense, together with most its offensive capability, are GONE!), very hard tonight,” Mr. Trump said in a social media post. “At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets, much like we have with Venezuela.”
Kharg Island’s deep-water terminals handle roughly 90% of Iran’s crude oil exports. Iran’s maritime authority overseeing the Strait of Hormuz has said the waterway has been closed to all traffic after the U.S. launched its latest air strikes on Thursday morning.
Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s Parliament speaker, warned after Mr. Trump issued his threat that any further escalation would lead to an explosion of energy infrastructure and markets. “Wrong strategies and impulsive decisions will reset the entire board for the worse, explode energy infrastructure and markets and create an endless quagmire that you will be stuck in for years. You will see a different Iran,” he wrote in a social media post.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said its forces launched strikes on Iranian military surveillance capabilities, communication systems, and air defence sites across Iran. “U.S. Marine Corps, Air Force, and Navy assets fired precision munitions on Iranian targets that posed a threat to U.S. forces and international commercial ships transiting regional waters,” CENTCOM said in a statement, adding that the attacks were “in response to Iran’s unwarranted and continued aggression”.
Iranian state media confirmed that Hormozgan and other southern regions were attacked by the U.S. In response, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched two waves of strikes targeting American military bases in three countries in the region, the Guards said in a statement. “Eighteen key targets belonging to the criminal U.S. military were struck and destroyed at the Ali al-Salem and Ahmad al-Jaber airbases in Kuwait, as well as the Sheikh Isa airbase in Bahrain,” the IRGC said.
It added that 12 ballistic missiles were launched at the U.S.-operated al-Azraq air base in Jordan. The IRGC Aerospace Force “hit American F-35, F-15, and F-16 fighter jets and important facilities of the U.S. army located at the airbase and a command-and-control centre,” the Guards said.
The Iranian military’s public relations office claimed that radar systems and communication antennas associated with a Patriot air defence system at the headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain were targeted by “explosive-laden drones”.
Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, the senior-most operational command of the armed forces, said Tehran would continue to respond to “the acts of aggression and mischief of the United States”.
It also ordered closure of the Strait of Hormuz. “From this moment, due to insecurity in the region, the Strait of Hormuz is declared closed to the passage of all vessels, including oil tankers and commercial ships, and any traffic will be targeted,” the command announced.
The Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA), the body Iran created after the war broke out to manage the waterway, said “applicants who have received a pass [to cross the strait] are requested to be patient and wait for the upcoming PGSA guidance.”
U.S. CENTCOM, however, said the Iranian claim was false. “Commercial ships are continuing to transit in and out of the Strait of Hormuz tonight,” it said in the early morning of Thursday. But Iran’s Tasnim news agency claimed that traffic through the strait has come “to a complete standstill”.
The U.S. said Iran is playing a “zero-sum game”, which it would lose. “Any damage it inflicts on our allies in the Gulf will be paid for with funds extracted from Iranian Accounts. Any tolls paid to the Persian Gulf Strait Authority will be offset by funds extracted from their accounts,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a social media post. “Every attack Iran launches will only deepen the economic and financial consequences it faces.”
Published – June 11, 2026 07:34 pm IST
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