Iran attacked American military installations in four Middle Eastern countries between Tuesday (1) and the early hours of Wednesday (2), in retaliation for a new wave of US bombings against Iranian targets in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow passage between Iran and Oman that carries a large share of the world's oil. The exchange of fire is the first in more than a month and, as part of the same escalation, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said two oil tankers "exploded and caught fire" after striking naval mines in the strait.
According to G1, Brazil's largest news portal, the Guard fired missiles and drones at American bases in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait and Iraq, including a "combined attack" on Erbil, in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region. The Jordanian Armed Forces said 13 ballistic missiles violated its airspace: ten were intercepted and three fell in remote areas, with no casualties. Kuwait and Bahrain activated air defenses, and Kuwaiti firefighters contained a fire in a residential complex in the capital, also with no injuries. The US Central Command (Centcom) said its offensive targeted "air defense systems, radars, maritime assets and installations, mine-laying capabilities and communication facilities" linked to the Guard, in response to Iranian attempts to attack "commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz and American troops mobilized in the region".
For Brazil, the most immediate effect comes through prices. Oil futures rose above US$ 94 a barrel after the bombings were announced, according to CNN Brasil. Brazil exports more crude than it imports, thanks to its pre-salt fields, and collects higher global prices on those exports; at the same time it is a net importer of diesel and cooking gas, so a prolonged shock raises the cost of those imports and pressures fuel prices, which carry weight in the IPCA, Brazil's official inflation index, at a time when the central bank holds its benchmark rate at 14% a year.
The interests at stake
Washington wants control of the passage. Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that he is not "trying to force Iran back to the negotiating table" and prefers the current position, "with almost total control of the Strait of Hormuz and their economy in total collapse". He even suggested renaming the route "Strait of Trump", according to G1. Tehran uses the threat of closing the strait as its main lever, and it rejected an Omani proposal for joint management of the waterway, CNN Brasil reported. Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan, hosts or neighbors of American bases, are trying to shield themselves from the crossfire.
"They will be hit again at a much harder and higher level, but it will not be the biggest attack of all, which is waiting in the wings, and when it is finished, very little will be left of the Islamic Republic of Iran" (Donald Trump, on Truth Social)
The American strikes hit, among other places, the port cities of Chabahar and Konarak on the Gulf of Oman, and the gas and petrochemical hub of Asaluyeh, according to Iranian state media cited by CNN Brasil. Tehran says shrapnel from one of the attacks struck a wedding party in the coastal village of Kouhestak, in Sirik county, killing at least four people, including a 4-year-old child, and wounding 68, according to the state broadcaster Press TV. The United States denies bombing the wedding, and G1 notes that the scale of Iran's retaliation may be linked to those deaths. Iran promised a "devastating" response.
An account with no independent confirmation
On the tankers, the account is so far exclusively Iranian. The Guard said the two ships asked the US Army to use a route it called "illegal", one not approved by the regime, that the Iranian navy had already warned about the mined area, and that the vessels went up in flames; CNN Brasil reports the ships were left immobilized and their crews evacuated. As of G1's last update, maritime authorities had not confirmed the incident. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) monitoring agency and the maritime intelligence group Marisks had already registered two tankers hit by projectiles since Sunday, and Trump said on August 25 that all Iranian mines in international waters had been removed or detonated. The scene recalls, on a smaller scale, the "Tanker War" of the 1980s, when mines and attacks on shipping in the Persian Gulf led the US to escort Kuwaiti tankers.