Iran threatens to target a second major oil route if US invades Kharg Island – live updates

Iran has warned it will strike USS Abraham Lincoln, one of the world’s biggest aircraft carriers, if it falls within range of its missiles.

The threat comes after a large-scale missile attack failed to hit the vessel.

Footage has emerged of the moment Iran launched a series of shore-to-sea cruise missiles at the Lincoln carrier, which was deployed to the Middle East to support Operation Epic Fury.

Speaking in the White House yesterday, Donald Trump said: ‘They shot 100 missiles at one of our aircraft carriers, one of the biggest ships in the world, actually. And of 101 missiles shot, every single one of them was knocked down.’

But Iranian Navy commander Shahram Irani warned the warship was under constant surveillance ahead of another possible attack.

‘The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier is under constant Iranian monitoring and will be targeted as soon as it comes within range of missile systems,’ he said, according to the SNN news agency.

The New York Times has reported that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the IDF to destroy as much of Iran’s arm industry as possible in the next 48 hours.

It comes amid Israeli concerns that the ongoing war in the Middle East could be brought to a halt, the newspaper reported.

A spokesperson for the Iranian military said today that the situation in the Strait of Hormuz ‘will not return to what it was’, adding that Iran will determine who is allowed to pass through.

Ebrahim Zolfaghari boldly claimed on behalf of his nation: ‘The authority to issue passage permits is ours’.

He added that the global price of oil is ‘in our hands’.

Referring to American negotiation efforts, Zolfaghari said: ‘Just as you flee from the prolongation of war, the power of our armed forces grow stronger with every passing moment’.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has today said his nation’s military campaign against Iran is ‘continuing at full force’.

He claimed that the threat of a possible invasion by Hezbollah from Lebanon ‘no longer exists’ following an extensive military operation in the nation.

He added that Israel’s focus is now on ‘dismantling Hezbollah’.

The Israeli leader added: ‘We are determined to do everything to fundamentally change the situation in Lebanon’.

The secretary-general of the International Maritime Organisation has revealed that 2,000 vessels carrying 20,000 seafarers are currently stranded in the Strait of Hormuz.

Arsenio Dominguez told Al Jazeera: ‘The longer that those ships stay there, the longer that the crews continue to suffer the stress, mentally, and the fatigue, as well as the reduction of all the supplies that they need for the ships to continue to operate.’

The IMO leader said that insurance companies are refusing to bear the burdens of the costs of these vessels, with most either cancelling contracts or charging significant premiums.

Iran could open up a new front in the war by launching attacks in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, another major oil route, in retaliation for strikes on its territory and islands, an Iranian military source has claimed.

Tehran has warned any US invasion of Kharg Island could trigger a sweeping escalation in the Red Sea where the strait links to the Gulf of Aden, the state-backed Tasnim News agency has reported.

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi militants have previously carried out attacks in the region.

Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi has signalled the group is prepared to join the war, declaring ‘all options at the military level are possible while affirming support for Iran, Lebanon and Palestine.

‘If the Houthis enter the conflict, it really raises the stakes,’ Adam Baron, a fellow at think tank New America, who specialises in Yemen and the Gulf, told The Wall Street Journal.

‘It pulls the Suez Canal and the Egyptians in, it brings Saudi further in.’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his country’s forces are expanding a ‘buffer zone’ in Lebanon as the military presses ahead with its campaign against Hezbollah.

‘We have created a genuine security zone preventing any infiltration toward the Galilee and the northern border,’ Netanyahu said in a video statement.

‘We are expanding this zone to push the threat from anti-tank missiles further away and to establish a broader buffer zone.

by Jon Michael Raasch, US Political Reporter

President Donald Trump’s ambitious Golden Dome missile defense system is picking up speed and could be ready for initial tests this summer as fears over domestic strikes grow.

Defense tech firms Anduril Industries and Palantir Technologies are jointly developing the software backbone for Trump’s $185 billion Golden Dome initiative, people familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

The firms are rushing to have the software ready for testing as soon as this summer.

It could be good timing as the 2026 Annual Threat Assessment released last week said that the US currently could be hit with thousands of missiles held in its adversaries’ stockpiles.

‘China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan have been researching and developing an array of novel, advanced, or traditional missile delivery systems with nuclear and conventional payloads, that can strike the Homeland,’ the report states.

‘The IC projects threats to the Homeland will expand to more than 16,000 missiles by 2035, from the current figure of more than 3,000 missiles.’

Donald Trump has once again the US has won the Iran war ‘completely and decisively’ as he lashed out at Democrats.

Trump accused the ‘radical left’ and ‘country hating Democrats’ of trying to create ‘inner chaos’ to negate America’s ‘great military achievement’.

On his Truth Social platform, the President said: ‘They hate seeing us WIN so completely and decisively, but the American public sees what is going on.

‘AMERICA FIRST! President DJT’.

Vladimir Putin is tightening his grip on Russia’s internet as fears mount inside the Kremlin that digital surveillance systems could be turned against the state.

The Russian President’s newfound fears come after Israel used Iran’s networks to kill former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Across Moscow and other major cities, the disruption is widely visible, as office workers struggle with blocked connections, teenagers are forced to constantly switch VPNs, and taxi drivers are left navigating without online maps.

Over the past week, mobile internet has reportedly been completely down every day in parts of central Moscow, St Petersburg and beyond.

‘These measures are taking place,’ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

‘They are partly related to the fact that a number of foreign companies refuse to comply with the norms of Russian legislation, and partly due to security measures against the threat of Ukrainian drones.’

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that fighting between Israel and Hezbollah must not condemn Lebanon to the same fate as Gaza

‘The Gaza model must not be replicated in Lebanon,’ Guterres told reporters, urging Hezbollah to stop launching attacks at Israel and an end to Israeli military operations in Lebanon, which he said are hitting civilians the hardest.

The Iran war is ‘out of control,’ UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said.

Mr Guterres has warned of more human and economic pain the longer fighting goes on across the Middle East.

‘The conflict has broken past the limits even leaders thought imaginable,’ he told reporters.

‘The world is staring down the barrel of a wider war, a rising tide of human suffering, and a deeper global economic shock. This has gone too far.’