Iran’s new supreme leader struck a defiant tone on Thursday in his first public comments since succeeding his dead father, vowing to continue blocking the Strait of Hormuz, a choke point for the world’s oil supply, on a day when multiple vessels came under attack in the Persian Gulf.
The attacks on shipping sent panic through oil markets as they digested what the International Energy Agency called “the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.” The price of oil rose sharply on Thursday, hovering around $100 a barrel, despite a plan by the agency, a coalition of 32 nations, to release 400 million barrels of oil from strategic reserves, including 172 million by the United States.
Images and reports from across the Gulf pointed to widespread attacks. Two oil tankers were burning off the coast of Iraq early Thursday. Saudi Arabia said it had destroyed two drones that were heading toward the kingdom’s huge Shaybah oil field. Kuwaiti authorities said Kuwait Airport was damaged in several drone strikes.
In Oman, an important oil export terminal, the Mina al Fahal port near the capital, Muscat, closed early Thursday for security reasons, the port’s operator said. Images from Bahrain showed a gray miasma drifting across the landscape after fuel tanks were struck, sending the toxic cloud of smoke into the air. And in Dubai, pictures circulated of a gaping hole in the modern, glassy facade of a skyscraper after what authorities said was an Iranian drone strike.
In a statement read on Iranian state television, the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, mourned the Iranians dead in the conflict and vowed to avenge “the blood of martyrs.” He especially dwelled on the schoolchildren killed in a strike that an ongoing Pentagon investigation has determined was probably a mistaken attack by the U.S. military.
And he warned that Iran was studying the “opening of other fronts where the enemy has little experience.”
“Dear brother combatants!” Mr. Khamenei added. “The will of the masses is for continued effective and punishing defense.”
In a news conference later on Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was asked whether Israel would target Mr. Khamenei. He did not answer directly, but said, “I wouldn’t sign off on life insurance” for him.
Mr. Netanyahu appeared to scale back his language about overthrowing Iran’s theocratic government. “We are creating the optimal conditions for the overthrow of the regime,” he said, “but I can’t say for certain that the Iranian people would topple it. A regime is toppled from within.”
On the 13th day of a war that has put on display the overwhelming military power of the United States and Israel, Mr. Khamenei’s address appeared to underline that the Iranian leadership believes it has found an effective pressure point, choking off oil and gas to the rest of the world. Iran’s military has warned that no ships can transit the Strait of Hormuz — the portal to the Gulf, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil supply passes — without Iran’s permission.
“The lever of blocking the Strait of Hormuz must undoubtedly continue to be used,” Mr. Khamenei said according to a translation by the Tasnim News Agency, which is affiliated with the country’s powerful Revolutionary Guards.
In response to U.S. and Israeli attacks, Iran’s military has launched missile and drone attacks across the Persian Gulf region and Israel, and even at Cyprus and Turkey, particularly targeting U.S. military bases and American interests, though it has also hit civilian infrastructure. It has generally not taken responsibility for specific attacks, but it did claim one of the tanker strikes on Thursday, and another on a cargo ship on Wednesday.
Mr. Khamenei, whose father was killed by an Israeli airstrike at the start of the war, appeared to issue a warning to Iran’s neighbors to sharply curtail their military cooperation with the United States.
“I recommend that they shut down those bases as soon as possible, because by now they must have realized that America’s claim of establishing security and peace has been nothing more than a lie,” he said.
Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs and an expert on Iranian security issues, said Mr. Khamenei’s statement was even more defiant in tone than his father’s utterances, particularly in how explicit he was about military strategy.
“He gets right to the point,” Mr. Azizi said. “It tells a lot, I think, about the direction of the country.”
The International Energy Agency said Thursday that gasoline prices would rise for consumers around the globe, but that diesel and jet fuel supplies were especially at risk because of the war. Rising jet fuel prices add to a crisis among airlines based in the Gulf, where tens of thousands of flights have already been canceled because of the war. Airlines that once relied on airspace over Iran and nearby countries have been scrambling to find alternatives.
Rising oil prices have also helped push interest rates up, with rates for 30-year mortgages in the United States rising two weeks in a row. They are now above 6 percent.
President Trump on Thursday shrugged off the rising oil prices, arguing that preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons was more important and claiming the United States would profit.
“The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money,” he wrote on social media, adding that “of far greater interest and importance to me, as President, is stoping an evil Empire, Iran, from having Nuclear Weapons.”
Days after Mr. Trump floated the idea that U.S. Navy could escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz, Chris Wright, the U.S. energy secretary, said Thursday that the Navy was not ready to take on that duty.
“It’ll happen relatively soon, but it can’t happen now. We’re simply not ready,” Mr. Wright said in an interview with CNBC, adding that “all of our military assets right are focused on destroying” Iran’s military assets and its ability to manufacture them in the future.
The death toll continued to rise across the region. Iran’s representative to the United Nations, Amir Saeed Iravani, told the Security Council on Wednesday that more than 1,348 civilians had been killed; he did not cite a figure for military personnel. Dozens have also died in Iranian drone and missile attacks on Gulf countries and Israel.
In Lebanon, Israeli bombardment has killed more than 680 people and displaced over 800,000, according to Lebanese officials. Israel launched a new wave of strikes on central Beirut on Thursday evening, saying it was targeting infrastructure belonging to the militant group Hezbollah.
The heavy bombardment, in a neighborhood of hip bars, high-end restaurants and high schools, came within a few hundred yards of the government’s headquarters. It crystallized fears that the conflict was expanding in the Lebanese capital beyond its southern outskirts, where Hezbollah has long held sway. It also deepened the sense that corners of the city once considered comparatively safe were so no longer.
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam gave a televised speech on Thursday evening, shortly after Israeli airstrikes rained on central Beirut. “We cannot, under any circumstances, accept that Lebanon once again becomes an open arena for the wars of others,” he said.
Reporting was contributed by Euan Ward, Rebecca Elliott, Aurelien Breeden, Gregory Schmidt, Eshe Nelson, Tony Romm, John Yoon, Erika Solomon and Karoun Demirjian.
Thomas Fuller, a Page One Correspondent for The Times, writes and rewrites stories for the front page.
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