The US president’s risk comes after one other day of Iranian assaults on Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan.
Printed On 23 Jul 2026
United States President Donald Trump says he might launch the biggest strikes on Iran but after Tehran carried out one other wave of retaliatory assaults on US allies within the Gulf, together with hitting a telecommunications tower in Kuwait.
In remarks to US information web site Axios on Thursday, Trump mentioned he was “contemplating an enormous assault” that might be “greater than ever earlier than”.
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“I’m shut to creating a choice. We’re all set for it,” Trump mentioned.
The risk raises the stakes but once more in a weeks-long military confrontation by which the US has attacked Iran for 12 straight nights, together with hitting bridges and tunnels, in response to Iranian media stories.
Iran’s retaliatory assaults have rippled all through a lot of the Gulf, sparking fears of a worsening power disaster.
The spiralling battle has all however destroyed an interim peace deal signed by the US and Iran final month.
‘Eye for an eye fixed’
Iranian Minister of International Affairs Abbas Araghchi warned on Wednesday that Tehran would retaliate “an eye fixed for an eye fixed” in opposition to any future assaults, together with these on Iran’s infrastructure.
After one other night of US attacks on Wednesday, Iran responded with missile and drone assaults on Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait on Thursday.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) mentioned the assaults in Jordan and Kuwait targeted and hit US military assets.
The IRGC additionally acknowledged attacking a telecommunications tower in Kuwait, saying it was in retaliation for US assaults on telecommunications towers in Iran.
In a press release addressing the Kuwaiti individuals straight, the IRGC insisted that the US, not Iran, had breached the Gulf state’s “territorial integrity and sovereignty”.
Afterward Thursday, Kuwait mentioned that its Abdali border crossing with Iraq had additionally come underneath assault by “hostile drones”.
“The armed forces’ retaliatory assaults will proceed so long as the US assaults on the nation’s infrastructure and coastal areas proceed,” mentioned the Iranian military’s spokesperson, Mohammad Akraminia.
Houthis assault Saudi tankers
In the meantime, Yemen’s Houthi rebels additional expanded the confrontation on Thursday by firing at two Saudi tankers within the Pink Sea, resulting in broad worldwide condemnation and a spike in global oil prices.
“The scenario is getting uncontrolled. It’s teetering on the sting of the unimaginable,” United Nations Secretary-Basic Antonio Guterres informed a gathering of the Safety Council. “One disaster feeds one other. One escalation triggers the following.”
The Houthis have declared a blockade of Saudi Arabian ports, destabilising a second key world transport route: the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.
The Strait of Hormuz has been successfully shut for the reason that US and Israel launched the conflict on Iran in late February.
Reporting from Sanaa, Yemen, Al Jazeera’s Yousef Mawry cited Houthi sources as saying that the services of Saudi Arabia’s nationwide oil firm Aramco “may turn into a future goal” of the Houthis if Riyadh doesn’t elevate its personal blockade on Houthi-controlled ports.
The worldwide oil benchmark Brent crude surged previous $100 a barrel on Thursday for the primary time in Might, in what analysts mentioned may have an excellent larger affect on the worldwide economic system.
“A lot of the world’s spare manufacturing capability has already been used, whereas strategic and business oil inventories are decrease than when the conflict started, leaving the market with fewer buffers in opposition to a chronic provide disruption,” mentioned Janiv Shah, vp of the Rystad Power consultancy.
