U.S. and Iran trade attacks on ships as fighting flares up again

A swimmer remains near the shore as a motorboat passes commercial vessels anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, on Friday. Vahid Salemi/AP hide caption

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Vahid Salemi/AP

CAIRO — The U.S. military on Saturday said it struck three Iranian oil tankers after Navy warships were targeted with missiles, warning that it would "if necessary, destroy Iran's limited and exposed oil fleet."

The strikes — a day after President Donald Trump sought to minimize the conflict as "small potatoes" — keep up a new tilt back toward fighting after six months of on-again, off-again war that began with U.S. and Israeli attacks on Feb. 28. Both sides have sought to inflict both military and economic pain, and negotiations have collapsed.

The military's statement said a U.S. aircraft carrier and a destroyer evaded "multiple unprovoked Iranian attacks" while patrolling in the region and no U.S. personnel were hurt. It said two Iranian oil carriers were "permanently disabled" and the third, unladen one, was destroyed.

The U.S. statement said the tankers were part of a shadow network helping to fund Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard and its armed proxies in the region.

Earlier, Iranian state TV had said four U.S. missiles struck a tanker about six miles (10 kilometers) from Kharg Island, home to a terminal through which the country exports most of its oil. Kharg Island been repeatedly targeted during the war, including U.S. strikes on military sites there in March.

The U.S. said one tanker was struck off Kharg Island and another was struck near Jask, east of the Strait of Hormuz. The unladen tanker was hit in the Gulf of Oman. The statement shared what it called video footage of the strikes.

"We will not hesitate to defend American forces, and if necessary, destroy Iran's limited and exposed oil fleet," the head of U.S. Central Command Adm. Brad Cooper said.

The strikes came nearly a week after the U.S. and Iran resumed attacks following a month of relative calm, with the strait and Iranian communities along it again being targeted. At least five people were killed earlier in the week during a U.S. bombardment of southern Iran. One strike hit a wedding.

The resumption of fighting came after new U.S. efforts to apply economic pressures on Tehran, whose hard-line new senior leaders have signaled the willingness to dig in after weathering decades of sanctions.

Meanwhile, the issue that helped lead to the war — Iran's nuclear program — was meant to be addressed in negotiations that fell apart soon after the U.S. and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding in mid-June. Instead, Tehran's new leverage focuses on the strait that is crucial to global oil and natural gas shipments and was seen as an international waterway before the war began.

The U.S. military has been helping to guide ships through the strait as Tehran asserts control and targets some vessels, but overall traffic remains low.