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United States President Donald Trump has threatened more attacks on Iran, warning that Washington could hit Iran “anytime we want”, as the death toll from the latest US strikes climbed to 18, with at least 108 others wounded.

Trump’s threat on Wednesday came after the US and Iran exchanged their biggest barrage since July. The US military struck cities and areas along Iran’s southern coast, near the blockaded Strait of Hormuz, including a wedding party in the city of Kuhestak.

Iran retaliated with attacks on US bases across the Middle East, including Bahrain, Iraq and Jordan.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said, “We hit them very hard last night” and that the strikes “took out all of the new equipment that they tried to build along the Strait of Hormuz”.

“It was a very heavy attack last night. And we’re prepared to do another one. And anytime we want,” he said.

Iranian officials said at least 18 people were killed in the US strikes.

The victims included two children, according to Mohammad-Reza Zafarghandi, Iran’s health minister. One of them was a four-year-old who was killed in the strike on the wedding party in Kuhestak in Sirik county.

At least four people were killed in that strike.

Esmaeil Baghaei, the spokesman for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, described the Kuhestak attack as a “war crime” and hit back at US claims that it does not target civilians.

“The reality is so horrifying that even American propaganda has never dared make the claim [the US military] is making today. Sirik is not a story. The civilians are real. The victims are real”, Baghaei wrote on X.

Iranian media said the funeral for the four Kuhestak victims will be held on Thursday.

‘Uncomfortable strategic position’

The six-month war has led to a spike in oil prices, roiled the global economy and posed increasing political problems for Trump’s Republican Party ahead of November midterm elections in the US.

Only 31 percent of Americans approve of the war, while some 63 percent disapprove, according to a poll by the Reuters news agency and the Ipsos polling firm in August. Voters are particularly unhappy about high gas prices. Since the fighting resumed this weekend, the price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, has climbed to about $95, up more than 30 percent from the start of the war.

Trump’s approval rating has also fallen from 40 percent to 33 percent since the conflict began, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling.

On Wednesday, Trump said he did not think the renewed military campaign ⁠would last long. He also reiterated his position that the upcoming elections were not a factor in his Iran strategy.

“Number one, I’m not running. My party is running, and I’m going to help my party,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “But I think my party respects the fact that we’re not allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”

Iran has denied seeking a nuclear weapon.

Tariq Khan, a retired Pakistani lieutenant-general and former commander of the Pakistan Army’s Frontier Corps, said the US “now finds itself in an increasingly uncomfortable strategic position in the Iran war”.

“The US has not succeeded in restoring the maritime environment that existed before the war, and is now expending military resources to deal with a problem the war itself helped create,” he told Al Jazeera, referring to Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

The strait was a free-flowing international waterway carrying roughly one-fifth of the world’s traded oil before the war. Tehran shut the waterway in response to the US and Israeli strikes on February 18 that began the war. Despite repeated US claims that the strait remains open, only a handful of vessels now pass through each day, and Iran continues to target ships attempting the crossing.

On Wednesday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said two oil tankers had struck mines and were disabled while attempting an unauthorised transit. Separately, Saudi shipping firm Bahri reported that two Filipino sailors were killed in an attack on their vessel earlier in the week.

Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA), which Tehran set up to police the Strait of Hormuz, added 11 more ships to its blacklist for alleged “noncompliance” this week, on top of the 45 blacklisted last week. The PGSA said the vessels will face fines, seizures or confiscation unless they submit required documentation to Iran before attempting to cross the strait.

Strait of Hormuz

At the same time, the US has intensified an economic isolation campaign against Iran, threatening to slap countries that ‌trade with Tehran with massive sanctions, while also maintaining its own blockade in the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump on Wednesday continued to insist that Washington was in control of the strait, saying US forces were helping bring “lots of boats out every day with millions of barrels of oil”.

“We are, for the most part, doing it without trouble. Every once in a while they shoot a drone, and we knock it down. We have control, very strong control,” he said.

On Tuesday, he had claimed the US Navy was helping escort some 30 ships out of the strait every day. Before the war, some 130 ships transited the waterway daily.

Khan, the former Pakistani general, said Iran understands it cannot defeat the US conventionally and is seeking to make the war costly for Trump.

“If Trump escalates, Iran can portray America as being drawn deeper into another Middle Eastern war; if he restrains himself, Tehran can claim that American military superiority cannot compel Iran to surrender,” he said.

“Iran does not need a battlefield victory; it needs to remain standing, keep the economic disruption alive, and make the war politically costly for the US. Tehran has to make American victory increasingly unaffordable – militarily, economically and electorally.”

Aug. 31 (UPI) — Oil prices surged early Monday after fighting flared in the U.S.-Iran conflict for the first time in four weeks since U.S. President Donald Trump announced a “pause” in U.S. military strikes on Aug. 1.

The contract for the benchmark Brent crude for November delivery jumped by 3.4% to $91.09 a barrel and the October contract for American crude saw a similar-sized increase to $86.22 after U.S. forces hit rocket launchers on Larak Island in the Hormuz Strait on Sunday night and Iran’s military retaliated, targeting American bases in Jordan.

The hikes were driven by the renewed hostilities stoking fears ongoing supply disruption caused by a drastic curtailment of tankers traffic transiting the Strait of Hormuz would be made worse and persist for longer, according to experts.

“Supply risk will persist and oil inventories will continue to deplete in the coming weeks and months. The Iranian crisis has likely changed the security status quo in the Middle East,” said PVM Oil Associates’ London-based analyst Tamas Varga.

Investment bank Goldman Sachs, the impact of destructive attacks on refining capacity was responsible for upward pressure on margins.

“Rising strikes on refineries in the Middle East and Russia have further constrained already-stretched global refining capacity, pushing refined products margins to new highs,” the bank said in a note.

Prices at the pump in the United States on Monday remained broadly flat from the previous day, with the average price of a gallon of regular unleaded up 0.2 cents at 4.08 a gallon, and diesel down by a little over 0.3 cents at $5.60 a gallon, according to the American Automobile Association.

The developments came as the United States’ Strategic Petroleum Reserve has fallen to its lowest level since 1982.

President Trump said Sunday he would restock it with oil from his Venezuela deal giving the United States secure a stake in more than 65 billion barrels of oil despite the fact it could to produce take many years to before the agreements yields any significant volumes because the oil is reserves, as yet to be drilled.

The price of oil has seesawed over the past two weeks after rising in response to Trump’s Aug. 19 threat to wage a “crushing economic operation” against Iran that his officials said would cause the regime to collapse, and then retreating again in the hours before the mainly-sanctions package of measures were unveiled on Aug. 24.

Russian ballistic missile attacks have begun to cause record civilian deaths in Ukrainian cities without any Patriot interceptors to stop them, but Ukraine’s long-range strikes have destroyed Russian fuel supplies.

With the Russian economy struggling, a top expert warned that social unrest could unfold in a matter of time – and consequently lost his job.

On Tuesday, Russian missiles killed at least 10 people in Pechenihy, a town 40km (25 miles) east of Ukraine’s northern city of Kharkiv. On Thursday, they killed 15 people in Kyiv, three in the western city of Zhytomyr and injured 40 at a border crossing between Odesa and Moldova.

Russia said it was targeting weapons manufacturing sites in Kyiv, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian forces struck 30 residential buildings, a school and a children’s hospital.

The United Nations said Russia killed a record 437 people in July and injured 2,610, surpassing its previous record in June by 30 percent.

Civilian casualties have continued in August, because Ukraine has run out of Patriot interceptors and has been unable to stop incoming ballistic missile attacks since the beginning of the month.

As Zelenskyy pointed out, Ukraine’s interception rate of cruise missiles and drones is still in the 90-percent range. But Russia is doubling down on the use of ballistic missiles and has brought in an additional 50 North Korean weapons, according to Ukrainian military intelligence.

Ukraine strikes back

Since June 25, Ukraine has launched a campaign of mid-range strikes to disrupt Russian logistics and has harassed fuel and ammunition supplies so effectively that it has made 233sq km (90 square miles) of territorial gains this year.

By August 16, Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces announced it had put 228 supply ships out of action in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, as well as destroying 243 power stations, electricity substations and gas distribution nodes in Crimea.

They have also been striking relay antennas used to guide Russian drones and radar stations that detect Ukrainian counterstrikes. On August 20, Ukraine struck drone launch sites in Donetsk City and Primorsko-Akhtarsk on the Sea of Azov, as well as a fuel terminal in the Kerch Strait used to supply Crimea.

Ukraine’s long-range strikes have served a different purpose – to undermine the Russian economy’s ability to fund its war.

On August 15, Ukraine managed to fly two of its Flamingo cruise missiles into the Progress Rocket and Space Centre, 800km (500 miles) east of Moscow, despite Russia’s use of four A-50 early warning aircraft and its reported downing of 822 Ukrainian drones that day.

Ukraine said it hit an engine assembly workshop for Soyuz rockets, causing a fire covering half a hectare.

Russia is using Soyuz to launch satellites for its Rassvet constellation to replace dependence on the US Starlink system, after Ukraine managed to cut Russian access to Starlink on February 1 . Russia needs satellites to increase the speed and precision of its counter-battery fire on Ukrainian positions. Its loss of that capacity has been partly responsible for Ukrainian gains this year.

“One Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle can put 20 satellites into orbit,” said Ukrainian electronics expert Serhiy Beskrestnov. “To create a basic satellite constellation in orbit, Russia needs to carry out 12-15 launches.”

The following day, Ukraine set ablaze a 25-hectare warehouse belonging to the Wildberries online retail chain, Russia’s equivalent of Amazon, and said it had destroyed seven out of Wildberries’ ten largest logistical hubs.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on July 28 that the Kremlin was monitoring the damage to Wildberries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin implied on Thursday that he might provide government funds for Wildberries to rebuild, saying “logistics and warehousing capacity certainly needs to be restored, including with government support”.

Ukraine has also succeeded in destroying Russian oil refineries and starving its economy of petrol

It has recently struck the Ust-Luga refinery, the Taneco refinery in Tatarstan and the Perm refinery, 1,500km (930 miles) from its borders.

Similar strikes this year have so reduced petrol supply in Russia. The Izvestia newspaper reported that only 28 percent of petrol stations across the country could supply fuel this week, citing mobile app GdeBENZ, which monitors real-time fuel availability.

Izvestia said only five petrol stations in Moscow were selling high-octane AI-98 fuel. Russians posted video of Rosgvardia police units sitting outside petrol stations to avert some of the fights involving motorists in recent months.

Deputy Prime Minister, Alexander Novak, said lower-grade fuel was being supplied to ease market tensions, and confirmed that Russia is now importing refined fuel for the domestic market.

“We expect a number of oil refineries to complete maintenance work soon and the situation to improve significantly,” Novak told Vesti journalist Pavel Zarubin, but that may be wishful thinking. Ukraine has struck Russia’s largest refineries not once but repeatedly. On Wednesday [August 19 ], it struck a refining unit at Ufa, which was undergoing repairs from a previous strike. It is 1,300km (810 miles) from Ukraine.

Ukraine also struck significant military targets during the week, including the Kamenyy Kombinat plant in Rostov, which makes solid rocket fuel for missiles, and the Savasleika airfield, from where MiG fighters armed with Kh-47M2 ballistic missiles take -off.

Russian economy in trouble

Some Russian economists have begun to warn of impending social and political upheaval as a result of the slowing economy.

Andrey Klepach, chief economist at Vnesheconombank, a state bank that finances the Kremlin’s national projects, warned on August 18 that, “Losses from Ukrainian military strikes … are already becoming a significant macroeconomic barrier to Russian economic growth.

“I believe Russia won’t collapse, but I’m almost certain we’ll reach a social crisis.”

He was removed from his post after making the comments during a discussion at the Moscow Exchange’s Nikitsky Club.

Russians are withdrawing savings in increasing amounts, reported The Washington Post. While businesses are increasing “voluntary” donations to the state defence budget, in addition to having to pay for their own air defences, putting further strain on the economy.

At a meeting of the Council for Strategic Development and National Projects this week, Putin acknowledged that Ukraine’s strikes are “certainly” causing damage, adding that “overall economic performance is modest but positive”.

That damage took financial form in the $1.18bn Putin newly released to aid regional budgets, in addition to previous financial assistance. Some $52m of that was destined for Crimea.

Ukraine’s defence ministry estimated that every dollar spent on drone strikes caused five times that amount in costs to the Russian economy.

Published on
20/08/2026 – 8:19 GMT+2

Oil prices rose on Thursday, holding near their highest levels in weeks, as the deadlocked standoff between the United States and Iran kept supply concerns elevated in the Middle East.

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Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose 0.3% to $91.90 a barrel, while US benchmark crude edged up 0.2% to $84.57 a barrel.

Prices have climbed steadily since the start of August, when Brent was trading at around $87.38 a barrel, as the standoff over the Strait of Hormuz keeps supply concerns elevated even without any single new escalation.

Both benchmarks remain well above the barrel prices they were trading at before the war began.

Markets rebound on Treasury move

Global shares rallied on Thursday, reversing course after Wednesday’s heavy sell-off in artificial intelligence-related stocks, after the US Treasury Department said it would at least double the size of its buyback operations for longer-dated government debt, to $4 billion (€3.4bn) or more per operation, starting in September.

The move eased pressure on bond markets that had pushed yields to multi-decade highs in recent months, and lifted risk appetite across Asia.

South Korea’s Kospi surged 6.1% to 6,858.91, rebounding sharply after sinking 5.8% on Wednesday. Samsung Electronics jumped 9.7%, while SK Hynix surged 14.1% after the memory chipmaker announced a share buyback plan.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 added roughly 0.9%, while the Topix rose 0.8%, recovering some of Wednesday’s losses. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 1.1% to 25,786.32, and the Shanghai Composite rose 0.3% to 3,905.23. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.3% to 9,066.40.

Bond yields ease from multi-decade highs

The yield on the 10-year US Treasury fell to around 4.64%, from 4.71% on Tuesday, while the 30-year yield dropped to 5.18% from 5.28% — pulling back from its highest level since 2007.

Yields have climbed in recent months on concerns over inflation stemming from the war in Iran and rising government debt.

Japan’s 10-year government bond yield, which had been trading near a three-decade high, fell to around 2.83% from more than 2.89% on Wednesday.

On Wall Street on Wednesday, the S&P 500 climbed 0.2% for its first gain in four sessions, snapping a three-day losing streak. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq composite each added 0.2%.

The US dollar rose to 158.60 yen from 158.16, while the euro slipped slightly to $1.1676 from $1.1677.

Additional sources • AP

Twenty-six more bodies have been recovered from the ferry that capsized on a lake in Zimbabwe on Tuesday, increasing the death toll to 72.

Police investigations suggest that the boat was overloaded when it overturned on Lake Kariba. It was carrying an estimated 153 people when it left Kariba town harbour, but its maximum authorised capacity was for just 90 passengers.

Among the victims were at least 18 children, including 16 under the age of 10, according to state broadcaster ZBC. Among the youngest identified victims were one-year-old Wendy Ndandarika and 14-month-old McDonald Nyasha Gumpo and Hailly Tauro, according to local media reports.

The captain, Sign Patsikadova, 59, is also among the confirmed dead.

Search and recovery operations involving police divers, military personnel and local fishermen continued on Saturday, authorities said.

Disaster management officials said 77 people were rescued shortly after the vessel capsized. Many were taken to a nearby island before being transferred to health facilities in Kariba town.

Survivors told reporters that high winds generated choppy waves that flooded the boat shortly after departure. Passengers had urged the operator to turn back towards the shore, but the vessel continued into open water before rolling over.

Some homes have lost more than one relative.

The government has declared a national disaster and deployed welfare agencies to distribute food to affected households.

“It has been difficult to know who to console first, as almost every homestead has lost a relative, and the worst cases more than five relatives at once,” Solomon Machipisa told local outlet The Herald.

The ferry served as a vital lifeline for remote fishing communities along the lake, connecting them to food supplies, markets and essential services. Its loss has already begun affecting food deliveries, with shops that depended on the vessel facing shortages, residents told The Herald.

Accidents on the lake, the world’s largest man-made reservoir by volume, are relatively rare, making the sinking one of the country’s worst maritime disasters in decades.

Lake Kariba lies on Zimbabwe’s border with Zambia, more than 300km (186 miles) northeast of the capital Harare.