Iran will avenge the blood of its martyrs, keep the Strait of Hormuz closed and attack US bases, new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said on Thursday in a statement read out on state television, his first remarks since succeeding his slain father.
In the defiant address, Khamenei said the United States must close all its bases in the region. The strait, which runs past Iran's coast and supplies a fifth of the world's oil, should remain shut to put pressure on the enemy, he said.
Two tankers were ablaze in an Iraqi port on Thursday after a hit by suspected Iranian explosive-laden boats, a step-up in attacks that have cut off oil from the Middle East and defied US President Donald Trump's claim to have won the war he launched two weeks ago.
Images verified by Reuters as having been filmed from the shore of the port of Basra showed ships engulfed in massive orange fireballs that lit up the night sky, after the attacks, which Iraqi authorities blamed on Iranian boats. At least one crew member was killed.
Hours earlier, three other ships had been struck in the gulf. Iran's Revolutionary Guards claimed responsibility for at least one of those attacks, on a Thai bulk carrier that was set ablaze, which the Guards said had disobeyed their orders. Another container vessel reported being struck by an unknown projectile near the United Arab Emirates on Thursday.
(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi in Dubai, Alexander Cornwell in Tel Aviv and Jana Choukeir in Dubai and Bo Erickson in Hebron, Kentucky, and Reuters bureaux Writing by David Brunnstrom, Lincoln Feast, Peter Graff. Editing by Michael Perry, Alex Richardson and Gareth Jones)