By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: US President Trump threatened on Thursday to seize Iran’s principal oil export terminal and assume control of its energy sector as American and Iranian forces exchanged strikes for a second consecutive day, pushing a fragile two-month-old ceasefire to the edge of collapse and rattling global oil markets already strained by months of war.
In a post on Truth Social on Thursday morning, Trump said the United States would hit Iran “VERY HARD TONIGHT” and declared that American forces would, “in the not too distant future,” take control of Kharg Island — the fortified Persian Gulf terminal through which roughly 90 percent of Iran’s crude exports once flowed — along with other oil infrastructure. He compared the planned seizure to Washington’s takeover of Venezuela’s oil sector following the US military raid that removed former President Nicolás Maduro from power in January.
“At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets, much like we have with Venezuela,” Trump wrote.
Hours later, in a phone interview with Fox News, Trump appeared to hedge. He said taking the island had long been his personal preference, but added: “I don’t know that America has the stomach for it, to be honest.” He said US and Iranian officials remain in contact and that he still holds out hope for a negotiated settlement.
The divergence between Trump’s public threats and his private reservations has become a hallmark of the war’s diplomatic rhythms. In April, he warned that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” before agreeing to a ceasefire hours later. Analysts said Thursday’s escalation follows a similar pattern — deliberate bellicosity designed to extract concessions from Tehran at the negotiating table.
“What’s clear is that the US president is continuing to mix public threats with what he believes is still possible — diplomacy at the barrel of a gun,” said Al Jazeera correspondent Kimberly Halkett, reporting from Washington.
A SECOND DAY OF STRIKES
US Central Command said on Thursday it had completed a new wave of airstrikes against Iranian military targets, including surveillance systems, communication networks and air defense installations in southern Iran. The attacks, which ended just before sunrise Thursday in Tehran, appeared broader in scope than the previous day’s assault.
Explosions reverberated across Tehran, the port city of Bandar Abbas and communities along the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said sites struck included a manufacturing complex, a military barracks and a Guard base on the capital’s outskirts.
Iran retaliated by firing ballistic missiles and drones at American military installations in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan. The IRGC claimed it launched 12 ballistic missiles at the Muwaffaq Salti Airbase in Jordan, targeting what it described as a US command center; Jordanian state media said air defenses intercepted all 20 incoming missiles, with no casualties or structural damage reported. Kuwait temporarily closed its airspace before reopening it early Thursday. In Bahrain, falling debris from intercepted Iranian drones damaged homes and vehicles in Manama and the town of Hamad, and an 11-year-old girl was treated for a minor injury, the Interior Ministry said.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said the overnight American attacks had “effectively rendered the ceasefire practically meaningless,” and placed responsibility for the “extremely serious consequences of this criminal act” on US leaders. Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, warned on X that “wrong strategies and impulsive decisions will reset the entire board for the worse, explode energy infrastructure and markets and create an endless quagmire.”
Trump, for his part, showed little patience for Tehran’s position. “We dropped $250 million worth of bombs on them last night,” he told Fox News. “They’re really in submission. They just don’t know it yet.”
THE PRIZE — AND THE PERIL — OF KHARG ISLAND
Kharg Island sits roughly 25 kilometers off Iran’s southwestern coast and has historically served as the irreplaceable artery of the country’s oil economy. Before the war disrupted global shipping patterns, nearly all of Iran’s crude exports moved through its terminals, making it among the most strategically valuable — and heavily guarded — pieces of territory in the Middle East.
Seizing it, military analysts have long cautioned, would be an undertaking of a different order than the air campaign the United States has waged since late February. The island’s proximity to the Iranian mainland — roughly 21 miles — would leave any occupying force perpetually exposed to missile, drone and artillery fire. American troops have not been deployed on Iranian soil at any point in the conflict.
Iran’s ability to threaten shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has given Tehran its most durable point of leverage throughout the conflict. The narrow waterway, which links Persian Gulf producers to global markets, carried roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas before the war; since Iran effectively throttled traffic through it in the early weeks of fighting, energy prices have surged and the cost of food and basic goods has risen well beyond the region.
On Thursday, Iran formally announced the strait was “completely closed to all vessels.” US Central Command disputed the claim, saying commercial ships were still transiting the waterway. Trump said on Wednesday that the military has been running a covert operation for several weeks to escort oil shipments past Iranian forces, aided by the destruction of Iranian radar installations, and claimed more than 100 million barrels have moved through since the effort began — roughly five days of pre-war volume. That figure could not be independently verified.
US Central Command said Thursday it had separately disabled a Guinea-Bissau-flagged tanker, the MT Jalveer, using Hellfire missiles after its crew refused to comply with U.S. orders. It was the ninth merchant vessel disabled by American forces since the naval blockade began in mid-April.
Oil prices climbed in response to the day’s developments. Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose about two percent to roughly $95 a barrel.
NEGOTIATIONS AT AN IMPASSE
The diplomatic backdrop to the military exchanges remains deeply uncertain. US officials have said for weeks that a deal is within reach, but the core issues remain unresolved: the future of Iran’s nuclear program, control of the Strait of Hormuz and the fate of roughly $100 billion in Iranian assets frozen by international sanctions.
Iran has insisted that any agreement also include a halt to Israeli military operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, a condition that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shown no willingness to accept. The Trump administration’s negotiating position is constrained, analysts say, by the political need to reach terms that can be presented as a clear improvement over the 2015 nuclear deal — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — from which Trump unilaterally withdrew in 2018.
Abas Aslani, a senior research fellow at the Centre for Middle East Strategic Studies, said both sides are caught in an escalatory logic that each believes will ultimately produce better terms. “The Trump administration wants to escalate in order to create leverage at the negotiating table,” he said. “And for Iran, the concern is restoring deterrence. That is why they might be escalating to de-escalate.”
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