Iran Fires Missiles at Kuwait and Bahrain as US Strikes Qeshm Island — and Disabled an Oil Tanker

Tuesday night's hostilities kicked off when the US military fired a Hellfire missile at a Botswana-flagged oil tanker heading toward an Iranian port — because the ship refused to comply with the US blockade of Iranian ports. That tanker, the M/T Lexie, was the sixth commercial vessel disabled since American forces began enforcing a naval blockade of Iranian ports on April 13. The ship's crew ignored repeated warnings over a full 24-hour period before a US aircraft fired a Hellfire missile directly into the ship's engine room, disabling it. Notably, the tanker wasn't even carrying oil at the time — it was empty. What happened to the crew remains unknown; CENTCOM hasn't said.

That tanker strike set off a chain reaction. Iran fired missiles at a separate, Liberian-flagged vessel in retaliation — but things got a lot more serious when the US then struck an Iranian military ground control station on Qeshm Island, a strategic spot near the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's response? It launched missiles and drones at two US-allied Gulf nations: Kuwait and Bahrain. Iran claimed it was targeting the US Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain and an American air and helicopter base in the region. The US says every single one of those attacks failed — two missiles aimed at Kuwait fell apart before reaching their targets, and three fired at Bahrain were shot down by US and Bahraini air defenses. A follow-up wave of Iranian drones targeting US forces in Kuwait also failed. No American personnel or assets were harmed.

Now, why does this matter to you personally? The Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway at the center of all this — has now been effectively closed for more than three months. Under normal conditions, roughly a fifth of the world's oil flows through it. That closure has sent global energy prices skyrocketing, which filters into everything from gas prices to groceries. The longer this drags on, the more it costs all of us.

Zoom out a little and the situation gets even more unsettling. There is technically still a ceasefire in place between the US and Iran, brokered by Pakistan back in April. But both sides are actively shooting at each other — ships, military installations, drones — while that ceasefire sits on paper. Washington hasn't formally addressed that contradiction.

On the diplomatic side, a nuclear deal is still theoretically possible. Trump sent revised terms back to Tehran focused on Iran's enriched uranium stockpile and control of the Strait of Hormuz, but ruled out unfreezing any Iranian funds. Iran rejected those terms and says it's writing its own amendments. Officials cautiously say a deal could come within the week — but the gap between the two sides is wide, talks have repeatedly stalled, and Tuesday night's exchange of fire doesn't exactly signal a breakthrough is imminent.