Trump says US will hit Iran 'very hard' after easing sanctions on Russian oil
Prices have been whipsawing on Trump's changing comments on the likely duration of the war, which has prompted Iran to attack vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for a fifth of the world's oil.
President Donald Trump said the US was going to be hitting Iran "very hard over the next week", shortly after issuing a partial 30-day waiver for purchases of sanctioned Russian oil, hoping to ease prices fuelled by the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Prices have been whipsawing on Trump's changing comments on the likely duration of the war, which has prompted Iran to attack vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for a fifth of the world's oil.
Trump has previously said the war is "complete", and also promised to guarantee the safety of vessels in the Strait. In a Fox News interview aired on Friday, Trump said the US would escort shipping there "if we needed to".
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
Benchmark Brent crude eased about 0.6% to around $99.80, still up almost 40% since the start of the conflict.
War on Iran extends across Middle East
After nearly two weeks of war, 2,000 people have been killed, most of them in Iran, but many also in Lebanon and a growing number in the Gulf, which has for the first time in decades of Middle East conflicts found itself on the front line. Several million people have been displaced from their homes.
US forces have also suffered casualties. The US military confirmed that all six crew members aboard a refuelling aircraft that crashed in western Iraq were dead.
Iran fired more missiles and drones at Israel, and Iranian drones were reported flying into Kuwait, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Oman.
The Israeli military launched strikes across Tehran and continued to attack the Iranian-allied Hezbollah militia across Lebanon and in the capital Beirut.
It said its air force had struck more than 200 targets in western and central Iran over the past day, including ballistic missile launchers, air defence systems and weapons production sites.
Iranian Press TV said a woman had been killed by an airstrike close to a rally in Tehran for Quds (Jerusalem) Day, one of many across Iran in support of Palestinians living in Israeli-occupied territory.
But President Masoud Pezeshkian, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and security chief Ali Larijani all appeared in videos verified by Reuters openly attending the rally in a gesture of defiance, despite an assertion by US Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth that the leadership were "cowering" underground.
"People are not afraid of these attacks. As you can see, people have come out in this rain, under these hardships," judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei said at the march. "We will not back down in any way."
The prospect that the jolt to global energy supplies could endure had boosted oil prices about 9% to $100 a barrel on Thursday, helping drive down US stocks.
With gasoline and diesel prices rising at pumps in the United States and around the world, the US on Thursday issued a 30-day licence for countries to buy Russian oil and petroleum products already at sea - where it is not uncommon for consignments to be sold or change their buyer.
The International Energy Agency said on Thursday the war was creating the biggest oil supply disruption in history. Average US retail diesel prices hit $4.89 a gallon on Thursday, the highest since December 2022, data from the motorist association AAA showed.
Despite this, Trump said the US stood to profit from higher oil prices and his treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said the rise was a "temporary disruption that will result in a massive benefit to our nation and economy in the long term".
Ukraine and Europe angered by US easing sanctions
The move is also the second time the US war in Iran has prompted a significant rollback of US sanctions related to the war in Ukraine in just over a week. While Moscow welcomed the move, Kyiv and its allies are angry.
"Six members of the G7 expressed a very clear opinion that this was not the right signal," German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told a press conference in Norway. "We then learned this morning that the American government has apparently decided otherwise."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the move could provide Russia with $10 billion, adding: "It certainly does not help peace."
In a post in the early hours, Trump had derided Iran's leadership as "deranged scumbags".
"They've been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them. What a great honor it is to do so!"
But Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, in his first public comments on Thursday, vowed to keep the Strait of Hormuz shut and urged neighbouring countries to close US bases on their territory or risk being attacked themselves.
Khamenei's comments were read out by a television presenter and it was not clear why he had not appeared in person or recorded his comments.
Hegseth told a news briefing that the US knew he was "wounded and likely disfigured". An Iranian official told Reuters on Wednesday that Khamenei was lightly injured but continuing to work.
Hegseth also said the US would not allow shipping in the Strait of Hormuz to be "contested", without explaining how.
President Emmanuel Macron said one French soldier had been killed and several wounded during an attack in northern Iraq, hours after an Italian base in the same area was attacked. The French soldiers were providing training as part of an international coalition fighting Islamic State militants.
Several homes in a Bedouin Arab town near an air base in northern Israel were heavily damaged overnight. It was not clear whether there had been a direct strike or falling debris from an interception. The injuries were mostly minor.
