Beirut/Tel Aviv2:47 a.m. March 21
Tehran4:17 a.m. March 21
Iran War Live Updates: Trump Says U.S. Is Considering ‘Winding Down’ War
The president made the comment on social media a short time after telling reporters on the White House lawn that he wasn’t interested in a cease-fire because the U.S. was “obliterating the other side.” The Treasury Department lifted sanctions on some Iranian oil.
- Vahid Salemi/Associated Press
- Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times
- Amit Elkayam for The New York Times
- Amit Elkayam for The New York Times
- Adri Salido/Getty Images
- Jalaa Marey/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
- Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times
- Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
- Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times
- Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times
President Trump said in a social media post on Friday that the United States was considering “winding down” the war with Iran as it was “getting very close” to meeting its objectives. His remarks came even as U.S. officials said they were ramping up aerial assaults against Iranian drones and naval vessels in an effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Earlier, Mr. Trump told reporters on the White House lawn: “I don’t want to do a cease-fire. You know, you don’t do a cease-fire when you’re literally obliterating the other side.” The president has said multiple times that the war was nearly over, only for U.S. attacks to intensify.
As the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran approaches the three-week mark, American commanders are still trying to eliminate Iran’s ability to choke off the strait, the critical passageway in and out of the Persian Gulf. It has used a lethal combination of mines, missiles and armed drones — or the threat of using them — to all but shut down shipping through the strait, through which passes a large part of the world’s oil and natural gas.
“I think we’ve won,” Mr. Trump said, saying of Iran that “all they’re doing is clogging up the strait.” Later, in his social media post on Friday, he wrote: “The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it — The United States does not! If asked, we will help these Countries in their Hormuz efforts, but it shouldn’t be necessary once Iran’s threat is eradicated.”
Iran has continued to strike out at its Persian Gulf neighbors, shaking the world’s energy supplies and the global economy. At least 37 oil refineries, natural gas fields and other energy sites in nine countries have been damaged in drone and missile attacks since the United States and Israel began bombarding Iran, a New York Times analysis found. U.S. and Middle Eastern officials have blamed those strikes on Iran, which has taken responsibility for some of them.
The price of oil rose once again on Friday, the global benchmark crude settling for the day around $112 a barrel, up more than 50 percent since the war began. The S&P 500 Index fell about 1.5 percent, losing ground for the fourth straight week.
The state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corporation said a drone attack had caused fires at the Mina al-Ahmadi refinery, for the second consecutive day. Israel said it had launched targeted attacks on Tehran after Iranian missile fire set off sirens in Jerusalem and northern Israel overnight.
To help ease the surge in oil prices, the U.S. Treasury Department on Friday temporarily lifted sanctions on Iranian oil that is already loaded onto vessels at sea, authorizing it to be sold to most countries. The license applies to oil loaded on vessels as of March 20 and is extended until April 19. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent previewed the decision on Thursday and estimated that lifting the sanctions would add about 140 million barrels of crude to the oil market.
Here’s what else we’re covering:
Iran: Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, the new supreme leader, celebrated the Persian new year and the end of the holy month of Ramadan with a public statement, but he did not appear on video, as questions persisted about his physical condition. He has not been seen or heard in public since being named supreme leader, after an Israeli airstrike killed his father and predecessor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Pentagon officials have said they believe he was seriously wounded. Read more ›
Israeli strike: The Israeli military said it had killed the spokesman for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Ali Mohammed Naini, in a strike on Friday. A statement from the Guards Corps carried by Iranian state television confirmed he was killed, but did not offer details. The statement said the longtime general had led the force’s “cognitive war” against adversaries. The Israeli military described him as the group’s “main propagandist.”
New attacks: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates said on Friday they were intercepting drone and missile attacks, which Emirati and Bahraini officials said were coming from Iran. The authorities in Bahrain said that falling shrapnel had started a fire at a warehouse.
Death tolls: Iran’s U.N. ambassador said last week that at least 1,348 civilians had been killed since the start of the war. On Thursday, a Washington-based human rights group, the Human Rights Activists News Agency, reported that at least 1,394 civilians had been killed. The number of Lebanese killed rose to more than 1,000, Lebanon’s health ministry said on Thursday. At least 14 people have been killed in Iranian attacks on Israel, officials have said. The American death toll stood at 13.
The Treasury Department on Friday temporarily lifted sanctions on Iranian oil that is currently at sea, authorizing it to be sold to most countries. The license applies to oil loaded on vessels as of March 20 and extends until April 19.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent previewed the decision on Thursday and estimated that lifting the sanctions would add about 140 million barrels of crude to the oil market. The move follows the easing of sanctions on Russian oil last week. Mr. Bessent said in a post on X that Iran would see little economic benefit from the removal of the sanctions.
“Iran will have difficulty accessing any revenue generated and the United States will continue to maintain maximum pressure on Iran and its ability to access the international financial system,” Mr. Bessent said.
The lifting of Iran oil sanctions after years of imposing “maximum pressure” on Iran’s energy exports underscores the lengths that the Trump administration is prepared to go to reduce global oil prices. Rising gas prices in the United States are a political problem for President Trump and Republicans ahead of the November midterm elections.
It is not clear that the limited lifting of sanctions on Iranian oil will affect global prices. Most Iranian oil is exported to China through its “shadow fleet” of tankers that evade American sanctions.
Energy analysts believe that most of the crude that is already at sea has been bought and accounted for, suggesting that lifting sanctions on that oil will not add a significant amount of additional oil supplies to the market. The sanctions exemptions continue to forbid Iranian oil from being sold to North Korea, Cuba or parts of Ukraine that are occupied by Russia.
The United States does not buy oil from Iran. Mr. Bessent suggested this week that countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Japan and India could benefit from the sanctions waiver.
It is not clear if international banks will immediately begin facilitating transactions involving Iranian oil.
“I don’t see a scenario where Iranian crude is going to be imported into the U.S.,” said Daniel Tannebaum, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, who previously served as the compliance coordinator in the Office of Foreign Assets Control for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. “Firstly, the available crude is a question as most barrels are already spoken for but also what global bank is financing an Iranian oil trade, legal or otherwise.”
Mr. Bessent said that the United States has worked to bring more than 400 million barrels of oil to the market since the start of the war almost three weeks ago. The additional supply, he said, is “undercutting Iran’s ability to leverage its disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz."
Price of Brent Crude Oil
As the United States presses ahead with its military campaign against Iran, the Strait of Hormuz has emerged as the war’s most pivotal battlefield.
In response to U.S. and Israeli airstrikes, Iran has largely blockaded the strait, snarling oil shipments and rapidly causing the price of gasoline to rise.
With the war approaching the three-week mark, President Trump is facing a battery of military and diplomatic choices that are testing his abilities as a leader.
The United States has been flowing military resources into the region to deal with the problem, and carrying out waves of attacks against Iranian forces and installations in the hopes of reopening the strait — a goal vital to ending the war and addressing the economic and political pressures on the White House.
The president has also pushed for allies to send warships to protect oil tankers in the strait. But he has built up little good will with those countries, after repeatedly subjecting them to punishing tariffs, insults and threats.
On Friday, Mr. Trump said he would leave reopening the strait to the countries that use it, claiming the United States did not. “If asked, we will help these Countries in their Hormuz efforts, but it shouldn’t be necessary once Iran’s threat is eradicated,” he wrote on social media.
It was one in a string of mixed messages the Trump administration has sent about the war.
Here are the options under consideration to attempt to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, all of which are complex and carry substantial risks. None of them would guarantee a quick end to the conflict.
Eliminate threats to shipping from land-based attacks
Before the Navy escorts commercial vessels through the strait, U.S. commanders want to destroy as many of Iran’s missiles and drones as possible.
What it would take: In recent days, American warplanes have ramped up strikes against missiles and their launchers along Iran’s southern flank that could target slow-moving oil tankers and giant cargo ships.
Earlier this week, the military’s Central Command said that Air Force F-15E fighter-bombers had dropped several 5,000-pound bombs to penetrate layers of rock and concrete to destroy underground bunkers storing cruise missiles and support equipment.
Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that Iran’s ability to launch missiles had declined by 90 percent since the start of the war. But he acknowledged that Iranian forces still had some firepower left.
General Caine added that some regional allies, which he did not identify, were using Apache helicopter gunships to “handle one-way attack drones,” one of the most potent weapons Iran has used to threaten shipping, as well as neighboring Arab countries and their energy sites across the Persian Gulf.
Sweep the strait for mines
U.S. officials appear to disagree about whether Iran has already started mining the strait. Intelligence officials say yes, while Pentagon officials say they have not seen clear evidence.
What it would take: Clearing the narrow waterway of Iranian mines would be a weekslong operation, according to one former naval officer who was stationed on a minesweeper in the Persian Gulf. And it could put U.S. sailors directly in harm’s way.
Iran is believed to maintain a variety of naval mines. They include small limpet mines containing just a few pounds of explosives that divers place directly on a ship’s hull and typically detonate after a set amount of time. Iran also has larger moored mines that float just under the water’s surface, releasing 100 pounds or more of explosive force when they come in contact with an unsuspecting ship.
More advanced “bottom” mines sit on the seafloor. They use a combination of sensors — magnetic, acoustic, pressure and seismic — to determine when a ship is nearby, and explode with hundreds of pounds of force.
“All it takes is for one of those things to get through to shut down traffic,” said Rear Adm. John F. Kirby, a retired naval officer. “The fear alone can be paralyzing to the shipping industry, as we have already seen.”
The Navy had four minesweepers in the Gulf, each with 100 sailors aboard, based in Bahrain. But those ships are gone now, one official said, replaced with three littoral combat ships that can sweep for mines but are also used for other purposes. And two of the ships, the U.S.S. Tulsa and the U.S.S. Santa Barbara, were spotted far from the Middle East this week, between Malaysia and Singapore, according to the military website The War Zone.
Go after Iran’s navy and fast boat fleet
The Pentagon has targeted the Iranian navy since the opening hours of the war, destroying or damaging more than 120 vessels, including several submarines. The goal was to blunt Iran’s ability to shut down the strait and threaten neighboring countries.
But Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps also has hundreds of speed boats. A fighter armed with a rocket-propelled grenade aboard one of these boats could slip through U.S. defenses and land a deadly blow to a tanker or warship.
What it would take: Low-flying Air Force A-10 Warthog planes are “hunting and killing fast-attack watercraft” in the contested sea lanes, General Caine said. The A-10 was developed to provide close air support for U.S. ground troops, but has been repurposed to strike ships at sea, he said.
U.S. warplanes are also striking speedboats hiding in coastal redoubts, but Iran has positioned some of them in civilian ports, increasing the risks to civilians from any American attacks.
The U.S. military is also attacking storage areas for naval drones before the drones can be launched.
Invade Kharg Island
Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of the military’s Central Command, said the U.S. attack against Iranian military sites on Kharg Island, the country’s oil export hub, had destroyed more than 90 targets, including bunkers for naval mines and missiles.
That has softened the island’s defenses if Mr. Trump follows through on his threat to seize the island and put a stranglehold on Iran’s oil economy, a possibility the Pentagon has gamed out in war-planning scenarios for years.
But Iranian troops are still on the island, and U.S. commanders say that such a mission would be risky.
What it would take: Some 2,200 Marines on three warships — armed with drones, attack helicopters and warplanes — have cut short a patrol in the Indo-Pacific region, and are expected to arrive in the Persian Gulf region later next week. The Marines are trained to conduct amphibious landings.
The U.S. military is dispatching 2,500 additional Marines to the Middle East next month, officials said Friday. They are expected to replace or augment those en route to the region now.
Another option involves Special Operations forces and paratroopers from elite units, like the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, taking the island. Once in control, the Americans would likely be subject to attack from any remaining land- or sea-based Iranian forces.
On Thursday, the president said he had no plans to commit ground forces to the war, before qualifying: “If I were, I certainly wouldn’t tell you.” He added that he would “do whatever’s necessary to keep the price” of oil down.
Use naval escorts to escort oil tankers
Mr. Trump said on Friday that escorting oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz was “a simple military maneuver.” Naval experts say it is anything but.
In fact, of all of Mr. Trump’s options for opening up the strait, naval escorts are perhaps the trickiest.
What it would take: Naval escorts are cumbersome operations that require not just Navy destroyers and littoral combat ships, but also attack aircraft.
The Navy has deployed around 12 destroyers and littoral combat ships to the region and could certainly send more, although that could take weeks, Navy officials said. A Navy destroyer, which is equipped with the Aegis Combat System that uses computers and radar to track and target, can protect oil tankers by firing cruise and ballistic missiles at land targets in Iran, while Standard antimissile systems can intercept incoming threats.
But one Navy official said that would require a high ratio of Navy destroyers to commercial ships, and would likely be a huge strain on naval assets. The Pentagon has already requested an additional $200 billion in funding for the war.
Mark Montgomery, a retired rear admiral, estimated that about a dozen Navy destroyers, with armed helicopters and other aircraft overhead, would be needed to escort five or six tankers or cargo ships at a time through the strait — a transit he said could take roughly 10 to 12 hours.
During the so-called tanker war between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s, the United States escorted reflagged Kuwaiti tankers through the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, part of Operation Earnest Will. The U.S.S. Samuel B. Roberts was nearly destroyed by a mine, and the U.S.S. Stark was heavily damaged by Iraqi missiles. In the end, 37 American sailors were killed.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, through state media, said late Friday that it had launched strikes on more than 55 American- and Israeli-linked sites in the region. It said it had targeted American bases in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Iraq, and the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, as well as Israeli sites in Haifa and Tel Aviv.
Strikes continued in the Gulf on Friday as the war reached the end of its third week and the U.S. military stepped up attacks against Iranian drones and naval vessels in an effort to reopen a vital oil route and bring down oil prices.
Friday also marked the Persian new year, known as Nowruz, and the end of the holy month of Ramadan, a period of fasting for Muslims. But celebrations were muted as the fighting in Iran and Lebanon showed no signs of abating.
Here’s what else happened on Friday.
Iran: The Israeli military said it launched a wave of strikes targeting what it called Iranian government sites in Tehran, the capital, early Friday morning. One of the strikes killed the spokesman for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Ali Mohammad Naini, according to the Israeli military. The Revolutionary Guards confirmed his killing in a statement carried by Iranian state television, crediting the longtime general with leading its efforts in the “soft and cognitive” war against enemies, while the Israeli military described him as the group’s “main propagandist.”
On Friday, Iranians ushered in their new year, mourning loved ones killed by the regime during mass protests in January and in U.S.-Israeli strikes this month. Economic turmoil amid double-digit inflation and the plummeting national currency hung over what is ordinarily a holiday of renewal.
Iranian media released a statement by Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, on Friday in celebration of Nowruz. Unlike his predecessor in years past, Ayatollah Khamenei did not appear on video as allegations persisted about his physical condition. He has not been seen since being chosen to succeed his father, Ali Khamenei, who was killed during U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Feb. 28, the first day of the war.
Persian Gulf: The U.S. military scaled up its attacks against Iranian drones and naval vessels in an effort to clear the Strait of Hormuz as the Trump administration faced pressure from skyrocketing oil prices. The strait is a crucial oil and gas route that Iran has largely closed off to ships.
Attacks continued against U.S. allies in the Gulf early Friday. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates said they intercepted drone and missile attacks, which officials in Bahrain and the Emirates said were coming from Iran. The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation said drone attacks set off fires at the Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery, according to Kuwaiti state media.
Lebanon: For many in Lebanon, the end of the holy month of Ramadan, Eid al-Fitr, is typically celebrated with feasts and gifts to mark the end of the fasting period. But on Friday, the joy of Eid was replaced with uncertainty and grief as hundreds of thousands of people remained displaced in the country, and as Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, continued to trade strikes.
Israel: Iran’s military launched a wave of missiles at Israel early Friday, according to Iranian state media. Israel’s public broadcaster reported a fire breaking out in Haifa and interception fragments falling in Jerusalem. Part of a falling missile struck Jerusalem’s Old City near holy sites during an Iranian attack, Israeli authorities said. No casualties were reported.
Washington: President Trump said on Friday that he was considering “winding down” military operations in Iran, even as the U.S. military was intensifying aerial assaults in the Gulf. The United States is also sending about 2,500 additional Marines aboard three warships to the Middle East, according to multiple U.S. military officials. The Marines will deploy next month and are expected to take the place of the Marines who deployed to the region last week from Japan, one military official said. The Trump administration has also declared a wartime emergency for the second time since the start of the war, circumventing congressional approval for more than $23 billion in weapons sales to allies in the Middle East.
Death toll: More than 2,300 people have been killed since the start of the war, most in Iran. Iran’s representative to the United Nations said last week that over 1,348 civilians had been killed there. A Washington-based human rights group, the Human Rights Activists News Agency, reported Thursday that at least 1,394 civilians had been killed. The Lebanese health ministry said on Thursday that more than 1,000 people had been killed in Lebanon. At least 13 American service members have been killed, while the Israeli death toll stood at 14, officials said.
President Trump said on social media he was considering “winding down” military operations in Iran even as the U.S. military continued aerial assaults in the Persian Gulf, and was sending about 2,500 additional Marines who will deploy there next month. He maintained that the United States was “getting very close to meeting our objectives” and left the issue of reopening the Strait of Hormuz to other countries that use it, claiming the United States does not: “If asked, we will help these Countries in their Hormuz efforts, but it shouldn’t be necessary once Iran’s threat is eradicated.”
Part of a falling missile struck Jerusalem’s Old City during an Iranian attack on Israel, the Israeli authorities said. Footage released by the Israeli police captured the incident on video: a large blast on the historic city’s southern edge, less than 500 yards away from holy sites like the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Western Wall. The video was verified by The New York Times. Air-raid sirens have repeatedly wailed in Jerusalem warning of Iranian ballistic missile assaults during the Middle East war that began in late February.
Switzerland has blocked any new sales of arms to the United States, invoking its policy of strict neutrality toward countries involved in armed conflict.
“The export of war materiel to countries involved in the international armed conflict with Iran cannot be authorized for the duration of the conflict,” the government said in a statement on Friday. “Exports of war materiel to the USA cannot currently be authorized.”
The United States is the second-biggest market for Swiss arms after Germany, buying military goods worth 94.2 million francs (approximately $120 million) in 2025. The suspension applies to at least a part of SIG Sauer, a major small arms maker based in both Switzerland and Germany. Its guns are sold in the United States and are heavily used by the U.S. military and law enforcement agencies.
The government said it had not issued any new licenses for arms exports to the United States since the war began on Feb. 28, and an interdepartmental body will regularly review such sales to see if any action is required under Swiss neutrality laws.
Sales under previously granted licenses can continue.
The government noted it had not licensed arms exports to Israel or Iran for a number of years.
Switzerland has had close diplomatic ties to the United States, managing its consular interests in Iran through the Swiss mission in Tehran and providing a venue for two rounds of nuclear negotiations with Iran in February as well as for negotiations on ending the war in Ukraine.
But Swiss neutrality rules also prompted its government to deny two U.S. requests earlier this week for reconnaissance aircraft to overfly its airspace. It allowed a request for overflight by three other American aircraft, which it said involved two transport planes and a maintenance aircraft.
“The law on neutrality prohibits overflights by parties to the conflict that serve a military purpose related to the conflict,” the government said. “Permitted are humanitarian and medical transits, including the transport of wounded persons, as well as overflights that are unrelated to the conflict.”
The price of oil rose about 3 percent on Friday afternoon, as the United States tried to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to shipping traffic. Brent crude, the international benchmark, traded for about $112 a barrel, about a 54 percent increase from the beginning of the war. The S&P 500 Index fell about 1.5 percent.
Britain, under pressure from President Trump to do more in the war against Iran, said Friday that American forces could use British bases to strike Iranian forces that are threatening ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
Until now, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government had allowed British bases to be used by U.S. forces only to strike against Iranian missile launchers used to attack British bases and allies, but not for strikes to defend strait traffic.
“The agreement for the U.S. to use U.K. bases in the collective self-defense of the region includes U.S. defensive operations to degrade the missile sites and capabilities being used to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz,” the government said in a statement.
Mr. Starmer has vowed not to let his nation be drawn into the war with Iran, citing the lessons the country learned after helping the United States wage war against Iraq on what turned out to be deeply flawed intelligence assessments. Officials said British forces still would not take party in any attacks.
On Friday afternoon, Mr. Trump said the British “should have acted a lot faster.”
“It’s been a very late response from the U.K.,” he said. It’s a surprise because the relationship is so good. This has never happened before. They were really pretty much our first ally all over the world.”
Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, said on Friday that allowing the United States to use British bases is “participation in aggression.” The statement came in a readout from Iran’s government of a call between Mr. Araghchi and Yvette Cooper, the British foreign secretary.
But Mr. Starmer is also trying to show he is taking action to counter rising gas and oil prices because the strait has been shut down. And he is struggling to maintain a productive relationship with Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly mocked him for not participating in the war.
“Unfortunately Keir is no Winston Churchill,” the president told reporters on Tuesday at the White House.
For Mr. Starmer, it is a tricky position. Polls suggest the British public is deeply opposed to playing a big role in another war in the Middle East. In remarks to Parliament this week, Mr. Starmer insisted that his decision to keep British forces out of the fighting was the right one.
“We will protect our people in the region,” he said. “We will take action to defend ourselves and our allies, and we will not be drawn into the wider war.”
The decision on Friday is likely to draw criticism from his critics for inching the country closer to participation in the war, pressure that’s been applied since the second night of the war when a British air base in Cyprus was hit by a drone. The strike caused little damage, but it caused a chaotic scramble that is still reverberating across Europe. France, Spain, Greece, Italy and the Netherlands sent warships to the waters around Cyprus for reinforcements.
Carlotta Gall contributed reporting.
At least 37 energy oil refineries, natural gas fields and other energy sites in nine countries have been damaged since the United States and Israel began bombarding Iran, a New York Times analysis found. Some have been struck by drones. Several have been hit more than once. As the attacks escalate, both sides increasingly view energy as a vital target — one that is capable of inflicting severe economic pain.
Iran has allowed some friendly countries, including China, India, Pakistan, Malaysia and Iraq, to secure safe passage of their ships through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical maritime route.
Now, Iranian lawmakers are discussing new rules to get through the strait, including a potential transit fee, Iranian and shipping news media reported. Around a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies pass through the strait. Iran has maintained a de facto blockade on it since the start of the war three weeks ago, giving its government a chokehold on global shipping and driving up global oil and gas prices.
Visible traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has slowed from more than 130 vessels a day to about an average three or four daily. More than 20 commercial vessels have been struck in and around the waterway. Roughly 2,000 ships and 20,000 seafarers are trapped in the area, according to the International Maritime Organization. And Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, said in his first statement last week that “the lever of closing the Strait of Hormuz must continue to be used.”
Still, some ships have passed through.
At least nine ships have left the strait through a corridor that takes them through Iranian waters around Larak Island, where the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and port authorities can see the vessels, Lloyd’s List, a shipping news and data service, reported Wednesday. Among these were vessels from India and Pakistan, along with ships that had been sanctioned by the United States as part of Iran’s shadow fleet traveling under the flags of Aruba, Palau and Madagascar.
“There is a clear and discernible pattern of some ships passing through,” Richard Meade, Lloyd’s List editor in chief, said in an interview.
Windward, a maritime intelligence agency, also reported on vessels leaving the Gulf through Iranian territorial waters, “sailing along the coastline rather than standard international navigation channels.” That is a new route emerging.
Traveling this way, which in at least one case involved a significant payment to Iran, Lloyd’s List found, is not necessarily safe. Mr. Meade said shipping companies had been talking to Iranian officials through indirect channels, sometimes with people in the Iranian diaspora. Safety isn’t guaranteed, he warned.
Iraq’s energy minister, Hayyan Abdul Ghani al-Sawad, said on Tuesday that his government was in contact with Iran to allow Iraqi oil tankers to pass through the Strait, providing the name of the ships, owners and affiliations for approval. India’s foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, said direct talks with Iran had proved effective for securing passage for two of his country’s gas tankers and that talks were ongoing.
Even if Iran were to establish a new system to get ships through, it is unlikely to meet global oil and gas needs.
Oil prices have surged, nearly doubling since the start of the war on Feb 28. The Trump administration is considering lifting sanctions on Iranian oil in a bid to boost global supply, and has already allowed Iranian oil tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with CNBC this week. The White House has also temporarily lifted sanctions on Russian oil at sea.
The moves show “a level of desperation” from Washington, said Brett Erickson, a sanctions specialist and managing principal of Obsidian Risk Advisors. “It’s hard to see how the U.S. can meaningfully exert pressure.”
The International Maritime Organization’s council, at a special session this week, called on countries to urgently find ways to evacuate ships trapped in the region.
The agency’s head, Arsenio Dominguez, warned ships to avoid trying to make dangerous crossings. “We must not expose seafarers to a higher risk than they already face now,” he said.
The Trump administration has declared a wartime emergency to bypass Congress and push through more than $23 billion in weapons sales to allies in the Middle East, the second time since the start of the war with Iran that it has circumvented the normal congressional approval process.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined that “an emergency exists requiring the immediate approval of critical arms transfers for Middle East partners currently under attack by Iran,” the State Department said in a statement on Thursday.
The Trump administration first declared an emergency soon after the U.S. and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran, in order to bypass Congress on the sale of more than 20,000 bombs to Israel. The Biden administration had also twice used an emergency declaration to sell weapons to Israel, for use during the Gaza war.
Such a declaration, while permitted under the Arms Export Control Act, is used by the White House and State Department only on rare occasions to sidestep the House and Senate committees that review and approve arms transfers. Mr. Rubio’s skirting of that congressional review process twice in less than two weeks is the latest move by the Trump administration to sidestep congressional oversight of the war.
The new proposed sale to the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Jordan encompasses 11 arms orders, according to the State Department. Some of the proposed sales had been under informal review by lawmakers, at least one of whom had yet to sign off. But the administration had not sent Capitol Hill even preliminary notice for a majority of the arms transfers it announced on Thursday, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive arms transactions.
Asked for comment, Representative Brian Mast, Republican of Florida and the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Mr. Rubio had “wisely” decided to declare an emergency and go around Congress after the top Democrat on his panel, Representative Gregory W. Meeks of New York, had refused to approve some of the proposed exports.
“He alone is holding up sales of needed weapons to Israel, U.A.E. and others,” Mr. Mast said of his Democratic counterpart.
Mr. Meeks said in a statement that he supported “our partners’ ability to defend themselves,” but added: “That support does not give this administration a blank check to ignore the law or Congress.”
Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, who also is among those who review arms transfers as the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said partners in the region were “bearing the brunt of the Trump administration’s poorly planned war,” and that the United States “must do what we can to defend them.”
But, she added in a statement, the State Department’s “rushed decision to use an emergency authority and bypass Congress to send them arms highlights the administration’s frantic state” and its “lack of preparation and inability to incorporate allies, partners and Congress on the front end of major decisions like instigating a war.”
The informal review process for arms sales is a long-established norm that is the main vehicle for congressional oversight over weapons transfers. After the State Department sends a list of proposed sales to the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the top lawmaker from each party on those panels reviews the proposals.
Any of those four lawmakers can ask questions of the State Department for weeks or months before deciding whether to sign off. Once the administration gets approval from all four, it gives formal notification to Congress of the sales. The law allows Congress to block the transfers if both the House and Senate push through resolutions to do so within 30 days, but that rarely happens.
For the Emirates, the export list includes Chinook helicopters, drones, Patriot missiles and air-to-air missiles, kits to convert unguided bombs to guided ones, a THAAD advanced missile defense system radar and other equipment, an anti-drone system and F-16 fighter jet upgrades and munitions, according to a breakdown obtained by The New York Times that was more complete than the public announcements from the State Department.
Kuwait would purchase billions of dollars of air and missile defense equipment, and for Jordan there are F-16 fighter jet upgrades.
In 2019, the Trump administration declared a similar emergency with Iran to fast-track the sale of over $8 billion in munitions to the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia, prompting an investigation by the State Department’s inspector general. Congress passed bipartisan resolutions to block the sales, but Mr. Trump vetoed the measures.
Several Senate Democrats have said they plan to force a similar vote next week on resolutions of disapproval for the weapons sales to Israel for which the State Department bypassed Congress in the early days of the war. Democrats have in the past split on votes to block arms to Israel.
“I would hope that my colleagues understand that it is absurd providing some 20,000 more bombs to Israel to continue the incredible destruction” in Iran and Lebanon, said Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats and is spearheading the measures.
John Ismay contributed reporting.
The British government on Friday gave permission for the United States to use bases in the United Kingdom to attack Iranian targets that are threatening ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Previously, Britain had said the United States could only use the country’s bases to attack Iranian facilities that were threatening British personnel and allies at in the region. Officials said that British military forces would still not be participating in the attacks.
Iran’s new supreme leader marked the Persian new year and the end of the holy month of Ramadan with a public statement, but he did not appear on video as his predecessor did in years past, as questions persist about the new leader’s physical condition.
Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen or heard in public since being named supreme leader almost two weeks ago, after an Israeli airstrike killed his father and predecessor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Pentagon officials have said they believe he was seriously wounded in the Israeli-U.S. bombing campaign against Iran.
Tّhe statement released on Friday was printed in full by Iranian media and read on state television.
Ayatollah Khamenei’s statement denied that either Iran or its proxies were to blame for recent strikes in Turkey and Oman but did not address the far more numerous attacks on other Persian Gulf neighbors that have been attributed to Iran. NATO air defenses have intercepted Iranian missiles fired over Turkey, while drones have targeted Omani ports and other facilities.
“The attacks that took place against some parts of Turkey and Oman, both of which have good relations with us, were in no way at the hands of the armed forces of the Islamic Republic and other forces of the resistance front,” Ayatollah Khamenei’s statement said, saying that claims otherwise were a “false flag trick” by Israel.
He also pledged to address Iran’s dire economy, which struggles with persistent double-digit inflation, high unemployment, and an increasingly worthless currency. He claimed that he had a habit of traveling incognito by taxi to listen to ordinary Iranians’ concerns.
“In many cases, I found my own views aligned with yours, which were often expressed as various criticisms regarding economic and managerial issues,” he said. He said the government had created an “effective and expert” plan to fix the problems, which would “soon be ready for action.”
Ayatollah Khamenei declared the coming Iranian year’s slogan as “a resistance economy under the shadow of national unity and national security.”
In doing so, he echoed his father, who often used the term “resistance economy” to refer to Iran’s need to be self-sufficient in the face of international sanctions.
German defense officials said on Friday that they had pulled German soldiers out of Baghdad who had been serving as part of a NATO mission in Iraq. The soldiers left Baghdad on military transport planes and arrived in Germany on Thursday. Some 200 German soldiers still remain in Northern Iraq and Jordan, the officials said.
About 2,500 additional Marines aboard three warships are heading to the Middle East, U.S. military officials said Friday, as the Trump administration’s war on Iran continued to prompt Iranian retaliatory strikes largely closing the Strait of Hormuz.
The Marines, who will deploy next month, are from the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit based at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and the U.S.S. Boxer amphibious ready group. They are expected to take the place of the Marines who quickly deployed to the region last week from Japan, one military official said.
Even as President Trump has said he had no plans to put American boots on the ground, he has left himself some wiggle room in part because of these forces. Marine Expeditionary Units can rapidly put detachments of troops and vehicles on the ground. Keeping a force of them in the region allows commanders to quickly launch small-scale ground operations with infantry Marines. Such Marine units also could help to evacuate American citizens from the region.
The unit already deployed, one official said, was scheduled to return to its home in Japan after a few weeks, although he added that defense officials could decide to keep both units in the region. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to share operational details.
It was unclear how the Marines would be used, but this is the second time in little over a week that the Pentagon has said it is sending Marines to the region. They will join more than 50,000 American troops already there.
The latest deployment, reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal, came a day after Mr. Trump said he had no plans to put American troops on the ground in Iran.