Saudi Arabia has condemned an Iranian attack on an oil tanker owned by its national shipping company that resulted in the deaths of two citizens of the Philippines. Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday said Iran targeted the Sidr tanker, owned by national carrier Bahri, while it was transiting the Strait of Hormuz two days earlier. “The kingdom stressed the necessity of halting escalations, and respecting international maritime safety and the security of global energy supplies,” the Saudi foreign ministry said in a statement. Saudi Arabia’s regional neighbours also condemned the attack, one of several recent incidents in the US-Israeli war with Iran launched on February 28. Kuwait and Qatar’s foreign ministries said the attack violated international law and freedom of maritime navigation. Qatar called the attack a “flagrant violation of the rules of international law and freedom of maritime navigation”. Doha further rejected the use of the Strait of Hormuz as a “bargaining chip”. Bahri, meanwhile, also confirmed the death on social media. “Bahri confirms that its vessel SIDR was involved in a security incident while transiting the Strait of Hormuz” late on Monday, it said.

“Bahri remains in continuous contact with the vessel and is coordinating closely with the relevant authorities and maritime industry stakeholders, while continuing to closely monitor developments,” it said. Iran has repeatedly attacked and threatened tankers attempting to sail through the strategic waterway without authorisation, impeding energy exports from neighbouring oil-rich Gulf countries. The US has maintained that vessels can safely transit the waterway, through which traffic has slowed considerably.  Washington has promised to continue its counter-blockade of Iranian ports indefinitely. Overnight Monday into Tuesday, unidentified projectiles struck two oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, Greek maritime risk management firm Marisks had said. Both vessels loaded two million barrels of crude at Juaymah on Saudi Arabia’s east coast last week, according to Kpler data.

On Wednesday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said two oil tankers caught fire after striking mines while transiting the strait. Before the US-Israel war with Iran began, about 20 percent of the world’s oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz. In July, another Bahri vessel, the Wedyan supertanker, was hit while passing through the strait close to Oman’s coast. Two other Bahri vessels, Masa and Amzan, were attacked in the Red Sea in July and August after Yemen’s Houthis declared a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia.

United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln made port in eastern Thailand in the crew’s first port call after nine and a half months at sea, following a taxing deployment in the Middle East amid reports of supply issues, deteriorating mental health conditions and low morale on board.

Carrying a crew of 5,000, the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier was seen making its way into the Laem Chabang port in Chonburi province early on Wednesday, shortly after the destroyer USS Frank E Petersen Jr sailed past the area, accompanied by other US naval vessels.

By afternoon, busloads of plainclothes sailors and Marines arrived at a resort hotel in Pattaya, a coastal city 150 kilometres (93 miles) southeast of Bangkok. Thai officials have said the Lincoln’s stop would be for rest and recovery before returning to its US base.

The Lincoln had been anchoring the US naval blockade and combat operations during the US-Israeli war on Iran. While crew members remained out of reach for comment, the ship’s weathered hull was noticeable, and the ship itself looked due for at least a new paint job, according to The Associated Press (AP) journalists who were present on-site.

Large rust patches blemished the exterior, particularly along the waterline and the edge of the flight deck where fighters and helicopters sat parked. When asked about the aircraft carrier’s lacklustre appearance, Captain Dan Keeler, the Lincoln’s commanding officer, replied that “it is normal for a long deployment” and declined to comment further.

US President Donald Trump rejected concerns raised by families of the Lincoln’s crew members over the aircraft carrier’s winding deployment for weeks. Standard naval deployments span six to nine months, extending only during periods of heightened conflict.

Weeks ago at Joint Base Andrews, the home base for Air Force One, reporters had asked the president if the Lincoln had been at sea for too long. He responded, “No, not nearly long enough.” Questioned about his thoughts regarding Trump’s earlier remarks, the commanding officer said: “So, the president speaks for himself.

” He told AP, “That is what I think about that.” The sailors and Marines are expected to rest in Thailand for several days. “Our arrival in Laem Chabang provides a well-deserved opportunity for our Sailors and Marines to rest and recharge,” the commander of Carrier Strike Group 3, Rear Admiral Robert E Loughran, said in a statement.

“What this strike group has accomplished is truly historic. I could not be prouder of the exceptional professionalism and expertise demonstrated by every member of this team during our operations.” During his second term, Trump pledged to steer clear of protracted, high-cost military conflicts.

And after launching a joint war with Israel against Iran, the president and his advisers said the conflict would only last a matter of weeks. The war has now entered its seventh month.

United States President Donald Trump has suggested renaming the Strait of Hormuz after himself, reasserting that the waterway is under Washington’s control despite near-daily Iranian attacks on ships in the area. Trump’s suggestion on Wednesday came less than 24 hours after the US struck several targets in Iran, killing at least four people, including two children, at a wedding in the southern city of Sirik. “Now that we have it under USA control, should we change the name Hormuz Strait to TRUMP STRAIT???” Trump wrote in a social media post. “Like America itself, it would be ‘hotter’ than ever before!” Iran responded to Tuesday’s attack with missile launches against US bases in the region. The fighting pushed oil prices upwards by around 4 percent. Despite repeated claims by US officials that the Strait of Hormuz is now open and millions of barrels of oil are transiting through it daily, oil prices have not fallen in recent weeks. Iran continues to maintain that the waterway is closed and under its control. On Wednesday, Saudi Arabia accused Iran of carrying out a strike on an oil tanker that killed two people. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), a monitoring agency affiliated with the British Royal Navy, has been reporting attacks on vessels in Hormuz almost every day.

In the US, the price of petrol is rising. It reached $4.12 per gallon (3.8 litres) on Wednesday, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA), up from less than $3 before the war started on February 28. When Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu started the conflict by attacking Iran and killing its supreme leader earlier this year, the US president promised that the war would last for six weeks. But the promised quick end to what Trump initially dubbed a “little excursion” never materialised. The conflict entered its seventh month last week. Still, Trump has continued to claim victory and control over Hormuz, repeatedly claiming that Iran has been defeated militarily despite its ability to strike back against US interests in the region. After the US strikes on Tuesday, Trump sternly warned Tehran against retaliating, saying that Iran would be “hit again at a much harder and higher level” if it responds. But within hours, Iran’s military fired missiles and drones at US bases in Bahrain, Jordan and Iraq. The “Trump Strait” suggestion on Wednesday is the latest push by the US president to assert control over a conflict that critics say was a strategic misstep that is turning into a quagmire. Last month, Trump said he views the Strait of Hormuz as “American territory”. Last week, he unilaterally renamed Lake Ontario, which borders both the US and Canada, as “Lake America” due to the ongoing US trade disagreements with Canada.

CAIRO (AP) — A U.S. missile hit a home in southern Iran where dozens were gathered to celebrate the wedding of a fisherman’s daughter, according to a rights group and Iranian media. Iranian state media said four people — two women and two children — were killed and more than 60 were wounded.

The rights group said one of the children, a teenager, was killed by another strike on a nearby communications tower. Heavy explosions shook the coastal town of Kuhestak on the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, and security footage carried by Iran's semiofficial Fars news agency showed fireballs lighting up the night sky.

It came amid the latest round of American bombardment in southern Iran that the U.S. military said was targeting air defenses, radar systems and maritime assets. Kuhestak is one of a string of small towns that dot the barren coastline along the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint that has become a central front in the six-month war.

Kuhestak is located about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the town of Minab, where more than 100 children were killed in a U.S. missile strike that hit a primary school on Feb. 28, the opening day of the war launched by the U.S. and Israel.

U.S. Central Command spokesman Capt. Tim Hawkins said the U.S. military was looking into the reports of the strike on a wedding. He would not say if the military had launched a formal investigation. Little information has come out of the remote area.

This is what we know so far. A missile smashed into the wedding party At least one missile hit the home of Ali Mallahi, a fisherman who at the time was celebrating the wedding of his daughter, state media said. “The missile completely destroyed the ceiling of the house,” Mallahi said in an interview with state TV as he pointed to the hole.

He said a neighboring house that shares the same yard was hit by another missile. Like most of the town's population, Mallahi belongs to Iran’s Baluch ethnic minority. There was no immediate video footage of the moment of impact. But videos aired by Iranian media showed a crater, and walls and the roof of the building heavily damaged, with a smashed car nearby and debris — including wedding guests' shoes — scattered around.

Four people were killed and dozens wounded, according to state media The state news agency IRNA and state TV said two women and two children, aged 4 and 16, were killed, and at least 68 were wounded. Just after the strike, Ahmad Nafisi, the province’s deputy governor, had told Iranian state television that five people were killed.

There was no explanation for the change. At the hospital in Minab where wounded people were taken, Iranian media showed at least two girls and a woman in bandages. One of the children looked like she was still in shock. A man at the hospital with bandages on his head and arm said he was heading to the wedding when he heard jets overhead.

The explosion hit as he arrived. “Blocks were falling and hitting people’s heads. And many small children and women that were there were terribly injured. So many,” he said in a video posted by the Iranian Red Crescent, which did not identify him.

The nearby port was also targeted Also hit in the round of strikes was a communications tower at Kuhestak’s port, about 100 meters (yards) from Mallahi’s house, according to state media. At least two missiles hit the communications tower and another hit a pier at the port, Moein Arjomand, director of the Balochistan Human Rights Documentation Network, told the AP, citing witnesses who spoke to his group.

The group, which maintains contacts with Baluch communities in Iran, said the 16-year-old was killed by shrapnel as he rode his motorcycle near the communications tower, rather than at the wedding as reported by Iranian media. Separately, Iran has said four members of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and 10 members of the Guard’s volunteer Basij forces were killed in the latest round of U.

S. attacks. A total of 108 people were wounded, according to state media. Experts say fragments point to a ‘very precise’ weapon Two weapons experts told The Associated Press that images of fragments of a missile, which Iranian media said was used in the strike on Mallahi’s home, were from a U.

S.-made SLAM-ER cruise missile. Trevor Ball, a weapons analyst at Armament Research Services, said the SLAM-ER was “developed as a very precise weapon” that can be retargeted in flight by a human operator watching by infrared camera.

N.R. Jenzen-Jones, the group's director, said a fin fragment was distinctive to an upgraded SLAM-ER, an air-launched missile manufactured by Boeing with a range of more than 270 kilometers (168 miles). The missile is also used by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, he said.

Iran has repeatedly attacked both countries during the war, but neither has reported carrying out any recent strikes on Iran. Central Command declined to comment on the analysts' findings. ___ El Deeb reported from Beirut.

Associated Press writers Amir-Hussein Radjy in Zurich, Fatma Khaled in Cairo and Konstantin Toropin in Nuremberg, Germany, contributed.