President Donald Trump announced on Friday night the bombing raid on an Iranian island intended to get Iran to reopen the crucial Strait of Hormuz.
The raid “obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran’s crown jewel, Kharg Island,” Trump, 79, wrote on Truth Social.
Trump said the U.S. did not strike oil infrastructure on the island “for reasons of decency.”
Iran exports 90 percent of its crude oil through that island’s facilities, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Trump added that he reserved the right to “immediately reconsider this decision” and strike those facilities if Iran shows no cooperation.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran, which has threatened passing ships with mines and strikes, has contributed to rising oil and gasoline prices.
The bombing of Kharg Island comes one day after it was revealed that the Trump administration had been caught off-guard by the closing of the strait.
The Pentagon and the National Security Council, sources told CNN on Thursday, had underestimated Iran’s willingness to shut down the shipping lane, partly because it hadn’t done so after Trump ordered strikes on the country’s nuclear facilities last June.
“Planning around preventing this exact scenario—impossible as it has long seemed—has been a bedrock principle of U.S. national security policy for decades,” a former U.S. official told the network. “I’m dumbfounded.”
Trump said earlier Friday that the Navy would be escorting oil tankers through the strait “very soon.” On Monday, he had shrugged off safety concerns by telling oil tankers to “show some guts.”
Meanwhile, the Journal reported that the Pentagon has sent 5,000 Marines to the region as part of an “Amphibious Ready Group.”
Thirteen U.S. service members have died thus far in the war, which will hit its two-week mark on Saturday. The cost to the U.S. over just the first week was approximately $11.3 billion, the Pentagon told lawmakers.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
