Tehran1:53 p.m. July 29

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American and Saudi fighter jets attacked Iranian-backed militias in eastern Iraq early Wednesday, embroiling more countries in the war, overshadowing diplomatic efforts and sending oil prices higher.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps also said that it launched missiles at U.S. military targets in Jordan as retaliation for American aggression. The Jordanian military said Wednesday that it had shot down five missiles launched from Iran.

The strikes followed several days of relative calm, with the United States and Iran pausing full-blown attacks. President Trump had raised the prospect of resuming peace negotiations, while also making fresh threats against Iran, repeating a pattern he has followed through the war.

“If they don’t make a deal, then I’ll go back and finish the job,” Mr. Trump told Fox News on Tuesday. Iranian officials have dismissed the latest American overtures on talks and insist they are in a position of strength.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East, said Wednesday local time that the strikes in Iraq were in response to more than 30 drone attacks by Iranian proxy groups in the past 72 hours. It said the Iranian military had directed its proxies in Iraq to target “U.S. forces and Saudi energy infrastructure.” No Iraqi militia groups have claimed responsibility for strikes.

The Saudi foreign ministry said in a statement that the country was not seeking escalation but would respond to any aggression. Saudi Arabia has faced dozens of drone attacks against its oil facilities this week, and the Iranian-allied Houthi militia in Yemen said it had targeted a Saudi oil tanker on Tuesday.

It was a rare Saudi engagement since the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran began in late February. The kingdom has avoided becoming a direct combatant, but it has launched secret strikes on Iran in retaliation for the attacks it faced, according to senior U.S. officials. The Saudi government has not acknowledged those strikes.

Following Wednesday’s attacks, Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi of Iraq ordered an emergency meeting of his National Security Council. The Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella group of Iraqi militias mostly backed by Iran, said in a statement that at least 20 fighters were killed in the strikes, and at least 30 more were wounded.

Separately, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said its forces had struck three tankers, but it did not say where the ships were located. Iran has been attacking vessels in and around the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial waterway through which some 20 percent of the world’s crude oil was shipped before the war that has become the focal point of the conflict between the United States and Iran.

Central Command said it had intercepted multiple ballistic missiles launched from Iran but did not provide details about the scale or the targets of the attack.

Here’s what else we’re covering.

• Oil prices jump:The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark, was up 3.5 percent at about $87 a barrel, and West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, was up by about the same amount on Wednesday following the attacks. Read more ›
• Jordanian bases:Iran has repeatedly targeted U.S. military sites in Jordan, which hosts some 4,000 American soldiers. In a rare challenge to the government, some Jordanians are calling for U.S. forces to leave the country. Read more ›
• Iran-Ukraine diplomacy:Iran considered attacking a seaport in Ukraine in response to a Ukrainian strike on an Iranian ship last week, but a flurry of diplomatic efforts has calmed the situation for now, Iranian and Western officials said. Read more ›

At least 20 fighters of the Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella group of Iraqi militias mostly backed by Iran, were killed in the U.S. and Saudi airstrikes, the group said in a statement on Wednesday. More than 30 fighters were also wounded and military vehicles and equipment were destroyed in the strikes, it added.

After climbing down last week from $100 a barrel, oil prices reversed direction on Wednesday as attacks resumed in the Middle East, jolting investors concerned about the flow of energy out of the region.

The United States and Saudi Arabia said they had struck Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, and Iran said it had fired missiles at U.S. military targets in the region. In addition, Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen said on Tuesday that they had launched missiles at a Saudi oil tanker, the group’s latest attack since announcing a blockade of Saudi shipping in the Red Sea. Threats of the blockade had helped push the global oil price over $100 a barrel.

Oil prices eased this week along with several days without full-blown fighting between the United States and Iran.

Oil prices rise.

• The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark, was up 3.5 percent at about $87 a barrel. That’s down from last week, but up 20 percent since the beginning of the war. That is for oil to be delivered in September. Oil for October delivery was up nearly 3 percent to about $84 a barrel.

• West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, rose about the same amount to about $82 a barrel.

• Investors and analysts are focused on the continued disruption to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that is a vital trading route for oil and natural gas that normally carries as much as one-fifth of the world’s oil supply. They are also watching the Houthis’ threat to restrict traffic in the Bab al-Mandab strait at the southern end of the Red Sea, which Saudi Arabia has used as an alternative to Hormuz.

Global stocks were mixed.

• Futures on the S&P 500 pointed to a slight increase - Stocks in Asia, where markets have experienced a sell-off related to fears about tech companies overspending in the artificial intelligence race, were mixed. Chinese indexes showed small gains. South Korea’s Kospi index fell 6 percent, and the Nikkei closed 1.5 percent lower.

• In Europe, the Stoxx 600, a broad-index that tracks the region’s largest companies, was little changed.

Gasoline prices tick lower.

• Gas prices fell one cent on Wednesday to a national average of $4.09 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club. The increase has raised the cost for drivers by about 37 percent since the war began.
• Gas prices don’t move in lock step with crude, usually trailing increases or drops by a few days.
• The average price of diesel rose one cent to $5.33 on Wednesday, up 42 percent since the start of the war.

The new attacks appeared to have spooked energy investors. West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, rose about 3.5 percent to about $82 a barrel. The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark, was up 3.7 percent at $87 a barrel.

Oil prices spiked last week amid fears of a blockade of Saudi shipping by the Iranian-allied Houthi militia in the Red Sea, but had calmed in recent days.

The United States and Saudi Arabia on Wednesday jointly struck Iran-aligned militias in Iraq in response to recent drone attacks launched by those groups. U.S. Central Command said in a statement on social media that under the direction of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the militias in Iraq had launched more than 30 drone attacks this week on American forces and Saudi energy infrastructure.

Saudi Arabia said that it had launched the strikes after Iranian-backed militias in Iraq targeted Saudi oil facilities. The Saudi foreign ministry, in a statement published by state media, said the country was not seeking escalation but would not hesitate to respond to any aggression.

The U.S. military said Iran’s Revolutionary Guards launched multiple ballistic missiles from Iran at American forces in the Middle East in the early hours of Wednesday local time. U.S. Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the region, said all the missiles were intercepted. It did not specify the location of the intended targets.

Iran considered attacking a seaport in Ukraine in response to a Ukrainian strike on an Iranian ship, but a flurry of diplomacy has calmed the situation for now, according to Iranian and Western officials.

Ukraine, which has accused Iran and Russia of supporting each other’s military operations, struck an Iranian commercial cargo ship in the Caspian Sea on Saturday, killing a civilian sailor. Iranian officials vowed to retaliate.

Some people briefed on the intelligence said that they expected Iran to fire a ballistic missile with a small warhead at Ukraine, to make a symbolic point but cause relatively little damage. Other officials said the target was probably one of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.

Any missile fired from Iran into Ukraine would be a dramatic escalation and risk triggering a wider war, given the tensions between the two countries over Iran’s alliance with Russia.

Iranian officials said they hoped the conflict would end with their retaliatory strike, but Western officials warned that it was difficult to predict how Ukraine would respond.

The officials interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity — the Western officials so they could discuss sensitive intelligence matters, and the Iranians so they could discuss military planning.

On Sunday, Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, called Ukraine’s attack a violation of the U.N. charter aimed at dragging Europe into Iran’s war with the United States. In a social media post, he said the incident “CANNOT GO UNANSWERED.”

A U.S. blockade of Iranian Persian Gulf ports has made Iran’s trade with Russia across the Caspian Sea more important. The Caspian Sea has emerged as a critical supply route for both overt and covert trade.

But on Tuesday, after Ukrainian diplomats sought to ease tensions, Mr. Araghchi spoke by phone with his Ukrainian counterpart, Andrii Sybiha.

After the call, Mr. Araghchi said in a post that Mr. Sybiha had described the attack on the cargo ship as unintentional. “Iran does not seek escalation either, but made clear any attack on our citizens or interests is unacceptable,” Mr. Araghchi wrote. “There must be restitution for losses.”

The Iranian foreign minister said on his official webpage that he also spoke to Kaja Kallas, the top European Union diplomat, about “ways to help decrease tensions in the region.”

Mehdi Rahmati, an analyst who is close to Iran’s government and is based in the country, said that while some Iranian political figures had called for striking back at Ukraine, others had advised restraint.

“Ukraine is not a small, insignificant country. It has warfare experience, and logistical support from America and Europe. We won’t gain anything by creating a new front in the war,” Mr. Rahmati said in a phone interview from Tehran.

Still, it was not clear how long the tensions would remain in check.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was in Washington on Tuesday for a meeting with President Trump and a memorial service for Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who supported Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Mr. Zelensky had promised to bring intelligence about Russia’s support for Iran in its war with the United States. Ukrainian officials have said that Russia has given Iran satellite imagery of U.S. bases in the Middle East.

Ukrainian officials have long complained about Russia’s use of Iranian drones and drone parts in its attacks on Ukraine.

The Iranian-backed Houthi militant group in Yemen said on Tuesday that it had targeted a Saudi oil tanker with missiles in what would be the latest attack in an emerging front of the war between the United States and Iran.

The skirmishes between the Houthis, who control a large part of Yemen, and the Saudis risked igniting another conflict and infused more volatility into world energy supplies.

Saudi authorities did not immediately confirm the attack on the latest tanker, the NCC Ghazal, which is listed by public maritime monitoring services as Saudi-flagged. The ship was last located five days ago, along Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast, by MarineTraffic, a ship-monitoring firm.

The Houthis said the tanker ignored repeated warnings and was forced to reverse course. They did not say if the ship was actually hit, or where the vessel was at the time.

It was at least the fourth oil tanker to be attacked since the militia announced that it would blockade shipping to and from Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea. A monitoring group run by the British Navy said, hours after the Houthi claim, that a tanker heard an explosion while transiting the Red Sea and all crew members were safe.

Shortly after the Houthis claimed the attack, the Saudi ministry of defense said that for the second consecutive day, it had destroyed several drones launched by Iran-aligned militias in Iraq aimed at Saudi oil facilities.

Since the Houthis announced their blockade earlier this month, each side has claimed attacks on the other. A Saudi-led military coalition has carried out airstrikes in Houthi-held territory for the first time in years. Separate from shipping attacks, the Houthis on Monday said they had targeted crude oil supplies and transport routes linking Saudi Arabia’s eastern oil fields to the Red Sea hub of Yanbu. The kingdom’s defense ministry has not yet addressed that claim.

Since March, Iran has effectively blockaded the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow portal to the Persian Gulf. That has forced Saudi Arabia to rely more heavily on exporting oil and gas through its Red Sea ports, hundreds of miles away.

The Houthis control most of Yemen’s Red Sea coast, where the southern part of the sea narrows to meet the Bab al-Mandab Strait — the link to the Indian Ocean and the shortest route to Asian markets. If ships cannot use that passage, they must instead go north through the Suez Canal, adding thousands of miles to some voyages.

In the last week, the Houthis claimed attacks on two tankers in the Red Sea, only one of which Saudi Arabia confirmed. Later, on Friday, the hull of a Saudi-owned vessel was damaged after being targeted in the Red Sea, Saudi officials said.

The Houthis form part of Iran’s broader “axis of resistance” alongside Iraqi factions, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. With Iranian backing, they fought a civil war against the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government of Yemen, taking over a swath of the country.

While the Saudis and the Houthis have been in a fragile stalemate since a cease-fire in 2022, tensions erupted this month when the Houthis accused Saudi Arabia of striking Yemen’s main international airport in Sanaa, the capital, in a dispute over an Iranian plane that tried to land there. The Houthis retaliated by attacking the Abha airport in southern Saudi Arabia, the first direct Houthi strike on Saudi soil since early 2022.

The Houthis have weaponized their ability to disrupt shipping in the Red Sea before.

During the war in Gaza, which began in late 2023, the Houthis attacked commercial shipping in the Red Sea with drones, missiles and hijacking, trying to exert pressure on Israel and its allies. By some estimates, a Houthi blockade could affect more than 3 percent of the global oil market.

The latest Houthi threats come at a particularly difficult time, with Iran’s attacks on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz prompting many shipowners and operators to decide it is too dangerous to use that waterway. The strait has been practically at a standstill, with the exception of a brief cease-fire, since the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, and the number of crossings has hit some of its lowest levels in months.

Iran’s skies have been free of the sound of explosions and airstrikes for the past several days, after a bout of renewed fighting with the United States. But Iranian officials say they have not agreed to a cease-fire and are in no hurry to hold direct talks with American negotiators.

Instead, Iranian officials insist that they are in a position of strength, military leaders boast of battlefield successes, and diplomats dismiss U.S. claims that they are eager to return to negotiations.

The rhetoric coming from Iran indicates that its leaders are comfortable with the state of limbo with the United States — something between peace and full-fledged war — believing that they can handle renewed conflict and that they have leverage over President Trump. The priority for Iran seems to be gaining recognition of its control over the strategic Strait of Hormuz waterway, a concession that the United States has been unwilling to make.

Despite the bluster, the uncertainty is a challenge for Iran, analysts say. Fighting could break out again at any time, a final settlement appears distant and Iran’s economy is almost certain to deteriorate further because of instability, wartime destruction and a U.S. naval blockade.

Ramazan Sharif, a former spokesman for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the ideological military force that has solidified its control over Iran during the war, said on Sunday that Iran’s “enemy” had “faced strategic defeat at every step,” Iranian state media reported.

Iranian diplomats have reacted with more restraint to the pause in the fighting over the past few days, after two weeks of trading attacks. But there is little hint that they are in a mood for compromise.

“At present, what exists cannot be described as a cease-fire,” the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, said at a news conference on Monday.

Mr. Trump said on Monday that Iran had asked for a pause to meet for talks, and that the two sides were engaged in discussions.

“We’re talking right now,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One, adding that there was “a good chance” a new round of diplomacy with Iran could yield a breakthrough. Last week he said at the White House, “they want to meet desperately to try and end it.”

Mr. Baghaei denied that there were any negotiations with the United States currently.

Iran faces stark internal divisions over the diplomatic contacts, with hard-liners opposed to resuming negotiations and denouncing the elected government, which has engaged in talks in pursuit of a cease-fire.

Iran’s negotiations, Mr. Baghaei said, were with Oman, over management of the Strait of Hormuz, the critical waterway for oil and gas shipments that Iran effectively shut down after being attacked by the United States and Israel in late February.

“They believe that time is on their side, that they can absorb pain and pressure more successfully than Donald Trump can, and that ultimately he will agree to a deal that fits their demands without any concessions from their side,” said Gregory Brew, a senior analyst on Iran at the Eurasia Group, a political risk advisory firm.

The recent resumption of fighting caused oil prices to surge, raising prices at the gas pump for American consumers. Oil prices had fallen sharply, after the United States and Iran paused their attacks.

Mr. Trump faces a painful dilemma in deciding his next step on Iran.

The New York Times reported on Saturday that private U.S. deliberations over the war have focused on the Pentagon’s shrinking stockpiles of air defense munitions, making a return to war high risk. That is just one of several concerns for U.S. officials, along with the danger of a widening war, the effect on Gulf allies and global energy supplies.

It is difficult to know the state of Iran’s missile supplies, said Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow with the Washington Institute and an expert on Iranian military affairs. Iran is believed to have produced between 700 and 1,000 solid-propellant ballistic missiles between the brief war with Israel in June 2025 and the outbreak of the current war, he said. Its output of liquid-fuel and cruise missiles is less quantifiable, he added.

Open-source information on Iran’s missile production can be fragmentary, Mr. Nadimi said. That opacity means that less is known about how Iran would fare in a return to full-blown war.

Still, Iran does not “want to return to a full-scale war that involves both the U.S. and Israel, and also one with open-ended prospects,” he said. Iranian officials have hinted in recent interviews that they agreed to the cease-fire partly because missile stocks were running low or were not fully accessible, he added.

Iran is at risk of overreaching, Mr. Brew said. For Mr. Trump, escalating the war could be more appealing than accepting a deal that gives Iran control over the strait, he added, and other countries are unlikely to accept tolls on ships. There is scope for both sides to de-escalate if Iran can accept a compromise arrangement for the future of the waterway.