Middle East crisis live: US military ‘drawing up additional options’ to keep strait of Hormuz open, says White House | US-Israel war on Iran

Karoline Leavitt was also just asked why Trump’s energy secretary earlier claimed that the US Navy had escorted an oil tanker through the strait of Hormuz “to ensure oil remains flowing to global markets”, before deleting the X post a few minutes later.

She replied:

I know the post was taken down pretty quickly, and I can confirm that the US Navy has not escorted a tanker or a vessel at this time, though of course that’s an option the president has said he will absolutely utilize if and when necessary at the appropriate time.

Karoline Leavitt said that Donald Trump is committed to allowing the free flow of oil through the strait of Hormuz, and reiterated that the US president has offered for the navy “to escort tankers when necessary”.

“The US military is drawing up additional options following the president’s directive to continue keeping the strait of Hormuz open,” Leavitt said.

I will not broadcast what those options look like, but just know the president is not afraid to use them.

At the White House briefing, Donald Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt has told reporters that the United States is “making tremendous strides towards achieving our military objectives”.

More than 5,000 enemy targets have been struck so far.

Iran’s ballistic missile attacks are down more than 90%, and their drone attacks are down by approximately 85%.

She said the US military is now moving to “dismantle Iran’s missile production infrastructure”.

Our incredible B-2 bombers recently dropped dozens of 2,000-pound penetrator bombs on deeply buried missile sites.

The IDF has warned that missiles headed for its borders were launched by Iran a short time ago.

The Israeli military said it’s working to intercept the threat, and is notifying people through mobile phone alerts in the areas that may be affected.

Upon receiving an alert, the public is instructed to enter a protected space and remain there until further notice.

Israeli media reports that sirens have sounded in parts of central Israel, shortly after the warning of incoming missiles from Iran.

And a spokesperson for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has also denied the claim made in a now-deleted post by the US energy secretary that a US warship escorted a tanker through the strait of Hormuz without incident.

“None of the US warships during the war even dared to approach the Sea of Oman, the Persian Gulf, and the strait of Hormuz”, the spokesperson said, as quoted by Al-Jazeera.

An update to a post from a few moments ago, US energy secretary Chris Wright has deleted a post on X which had said the US Navy had successfully escorted an oil tanker through the strait of Hormuz “to ensure oil remains flowing to global markets”.

It’s unclear why he deleted the post.

Russia has denied sharing intelligence with Iran on US military assets in the Middle East, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said on Tuesday.

Speaking to CNBC, Witkoff said the denial came during a phone call that Donald Trump had with Russian president Vladimir Putin on Monday, as well as in a separate call that he held earlier that day with Jared Kushner and Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov.

Trump didn’t divulge any details about his call with Putin yesterday, saying only that it was “very good” and that the Russian president “wants to be helpful on Iran”. On the Russian side, Ushakov said the conversation was “frank” and “business-like”.

It follows reports on Friday that Moscow was providing Tehran with targeting information that included locations and movements of US warships and aircraft in the region.

“Yesterday on the call with the president, the Russians said that they have not been sharing,” Witkoff said when asked if Washington thought Moscow had shared intelligence about the location of US military assets with Tehran.

He went on: “We can take them at their word. But they did say that. And yesterday morning, independently, Jared and I had a call with Ushakov who reiterated the same.”

He added: “That’s a better question for the intel people, but let’s hope that they’re not sharing.”

Cardinal Robert W McElroy, the archbishop of Washington, has said that the US-Israeli war with Iran is “not morally legitimate”, going further than the pope has done in his more moderate appeals for an end to the war.

In an interview with the Catholic Standard this week, McElroy said “the criterion of just cause is not met because our country was not responding to an existing or imminent and objectively verifiable attack by Iran.”

“As Pope Benedict declared categorically, Catholic teaching does not support preventative war, ie a war justified by speculation about events in the future,” he said. “If preventative war were to be accepted morally, then all limits to the cause for going to war would be put in extreme jeopardy.”

McElroy also argued that the conflict fails the “criterion of right intention” arguing that in his opinion, “one of the most worrying elements of these first days of the war in Iran is that our goals and intentions are absolutely unclear, ranging from the destruction of Iran’s conventional and nuclear weapons potential to the overthrow of its regime to the establishment of a democratic government to unconditional surrender,” he said. “You cannot satisfy the just war tradition’s criterion of right intention if you do not have a clear intention.”

He added that “our current war effort does not meet Catholic just war teaching because it is far from clear that the benefits of this war will outweigh the harm which will be done.”

Lisa O’Carroll

The Iran war has thrown global oil and gas flows into chaos and the prospect of Donald Trump easing US sanctions on Russian oil to fill the gap is causing a nightmare for the EU.

The European Council president, António Costa, who represents the EU’s leaders, said on Tuesday the only winner from the ongoing conflict would be Vladimir Putin, who could step into the gap created by the throttling of Gulf supplies.

So how are Brussels and individual member states reacting to a crisis that in just 24 hours sent the oil price to almost $120 a barrel, before swinging back to nearer $90?