Iran’s parliament speaker warned on Wednesday about the possible invasion of an Iranian island with the support of an unnamed regional country.
“Based on some intelligence reports, Iran’s enemies are preparing to occupy one of the Iranian islands with support from one of the regional states,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf wrote in an X post written in both Persian and Arabic.
“Our forces are monitoring all enemy movements, and if they take any step, all the vital infrastructure of that regional state will be targeted with relentless, unceasing attacks.”
US President Donald Trump is moving thousands of airborne troops and extra marines to the Gulf amid speculation that he might order a ground invasion to either seize Iranian oil assets in the Gulf or secure the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
One possible target is Kharg Island, which handles almost all of Iran’s crude exports.
Trump has called it a “little oil island that sits there, so totally unprotected”.
Earlier on Wednesday, an unnamed Iranian military official told local media that Iran would target shipping in the Red Sea in the event of a ground invasion, which would dramatically widen the conflict and disrupt global trade.
Iran arms and supports the Houthi rebel group in Yemen which has previously targeted shipping travelling through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a conduit to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.
“If the enemy attempts a ground operation on Iranian islands or anywhere else on our territory, or if it seeks to impose costs on Iran through naval manoeuvres in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman, we will open other fronts as a ‘surprise’,” the official was quoted as saying by the Tasnim news agency.
“The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is among the most strategic straits in the world, and Iran has both the will and the capability to pose a fully credible threat against it,” the official said.
Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which lies off Iran, has slowed to a trickle because of the conflict, disrupting roughly 20 percent of global oil supplies.
Crude prices have spiked to around $100 a barrel as a result of what the International Energy Agency has called “the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market”.
On Wednesday, Tehran signaled that “non-hostile vessels” may transit the waterway if they comply with safety and security regulations in coordination with the relevant authorities.
