The Islamic Republic of Iran responded to President Donald J. Trump’s ultimatum to “immediately” reopen the Strait of Hormuz by striking a fully loaded oil tanker off the coast of Dubai.
Bloomberg News reported that an Iranian drone struck the Kuwait-flagged Al-Salmi, which was in the anchorage zone of Dubai’s port. The large vessel, which, according to the outlet, was in “an area packed with ships waiting to exit the Persian Gulf,” was struck shortly after midnight on Tuesday, starting a fire on board and damaging the hull.
Kuwaiti crude carrier “Al-Salmi” was directly attacked by Iranian forces while docked at the anchorage area of Dubai Port in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) said early Tuesday.
In a press statement, KPC said that the tanker was fully laden at the… pic.twitter.com/Fi4062GDGc
— KUWAIT TIMES (@kuwaittimesnews) March 30, 2026
The fire was successfully extinguished, and all of the ship’s 24 crew members are safe.
“Dubai authorities confirm that response teams have successfully contained the incident involving the Kuwaiti oil tanker in Dubai waters, with no oil leakage and no injuries reported,” the Dubai Media Office said in a post to X.
Iran’s striking of the maritime vessel is the latest escalatory move in the four-week-old war, which continues to threaten the global economy with the shutdown of the vital navigation chokepoint through which around a fifth of the world’s oil passes, along with other resources, including helium and fertilizer.
In a Monday post to Truth Social, Trump announced that “great progress” was being made in negotiating to bring an end to military operations while threatening to unleash total hell on Iran if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, including strikes against civilian infrastructure and possibly desalination plants vital for the drinking water of millions of people.
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 30, 2026
“The United States of America is in serious discussions with A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran. Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘Open for Business,’ we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet ‘touched,'” Trump warned.
Also on Monday, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, mourned the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s navy, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike last week, a rare public statement from the new ayatollah.
“Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei on Monday mourned IRGC Navy Chief Commodore Alireza Tangsiri, calling him a ‘brave commander’ who ‘attained martyrdom after years of struggle,’ according to state news agency IRNA,” Fox News reported. “Khamenei also described Tangsiri as courageous and central to Iran’s role in the Persian Gulf, adding that he ‘died for his country’ so its military “may continue on the path of Iran’s maritime authority and resistance, stronger and more firmly than in the past.”
“Tangsiri, 64, died of injuries sustained while on duty, the IRGC said, after working to strengthen Iran’s coastal defenses, though Israel says he was killed in an airstrike targeting a naval base in Bandar Abbas,” according to the outlet. “This marks only the fourth public written message from Khamenei since succeeding his father, who died in a strike on Feb. 28.”
The war’s impact is already being felt by American drivers, with the New York Times reporting that the average price of gasoline “crossed an average of $4 a gallon on Tuesday, a threshold it hadn’t reached since August 2022.”
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