DUBAI — The United States has llaunched its third consecutive night of strikes on Iran hours after Donald Trump said Washington would reinstate a maritime blockade on the country and, in an apparently policy reversal, charge ships for safe passage. Iran responded with attacks targeting Bahrain and two oil supertankers associated with the United Arab Emirates traveling through the strait, killing one mariner and wounding eight others. The UAE threatened to retaliate, potentially drawing the nation back into fighting with Iran. Iran’s Islamic Republic Guard Corps (IRGC) said it has launched missile and drone attacks on the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. It said the strikes set fire to fuel depots at the base and hit and destroyed a Patriot radar, as well as the fleet’s air control radar, a C-RAM early warning radar system and the control and monitoring centre for unmanned surface vessels. “The retaliatory operation continues,” the statement added. The attacks come as Iran and the US both vie for control of the strait through which a fifth of all crude oil and natural gas passed in peacetime. Trump suggested Washington will charge ships for safe passage through the strait, upending hundreds of years of American policy [...]
