U.S. launches daytime strikes against Iran

The U.S. military launched renewed strikes on Iran throughout the day on Wednesday. Strikes began Wednesday morning, U.S. Central Command announced in a social media post. The U.S. military launched a second wave of strikes Wednesday afternoon, according to CENTCOM. Those strikes targeted Iranian forces that have attacked commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and followed a previous round of U.S. airstrikes against Iran on Tuesday evening, CENTCOM said. 

At some point on Wednesday, U.S. forces disabled an unladen oil tanker attempting to sail toward an Iranian port in the Arabian Gulf, according to CENTCOM. The U.S. military fired hellfire missiles into the vessel's smokestack after it ignored multiple warnings and tried to violate a U.S. blockade on Iranian ships, CENTCOM said.

Adm. Brad Cooper, CENTCOM’s commander, said in a separate statement that Iran has intentionally targeted civilians by attacking commercial ships, resulting in nearly a dozen civilian crew members killed, missing, or injured in the past week. U.S. forces resumed their naval blockade against vessels going to or from Iranian ports and coastal areas around 4 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday.

President Donald Trump said in a Fox News interview Tuesday that Iran should make a deal soon, or it will have nothing left.

What has Iran said about the latest strikes? Iran’s paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened to stop all energy exports from the Middle East due to the blockade. It said the export of oil and gas from the region would either be for everyone or no one.

Meanwhile, Iran’s health ministry claimed that the past week’s strikes against Iran have wounded more than 260 people, including a handful of women and children. Wednesday’s strikes also killed seven military personnel, according to state-run Fars News.

Dig deeper: Read Christina Grube’s report on the U.S.-Iran conflict’s effect on the price of oil this week.