Hundreds of thousands of mourners gathered for the funeral procession of Iran's late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, during a mass funeral march near Azadi Square in Tehran on July 6, 2026. File Photo by Behnam Tofighi/UPI | License Photo
July 13 (UPI) -- The U.S. military attacked Iran for a third consecutive night and Iran struck commercial tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and targeted U.S. assets in the region on Monday, as fighting over the vital energy route intensified.
U.S. Central Command said in a late Monday statement that it had completed a five-hour bombardment of Iran, striking targets in Bushehr, Chabahar, Jask, Konarak, Abu Musa and Bandar Abbas to "further degrade Iran's ability to attack commercial shipping."
U.S. Central Command said, in announcing the strikes hours earlier, that the attack was at Trump's direction.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-aligned Fars News Agency reported explosions in Bandar Abbas, Chabahar and Konarak. Flight-tracking information showed at least a dozen U.S. military aircraft circling over the Middle East, including surveillance and intelligence aircraft and refueling tankers, CNN reported.
