Sarah: Tonight, the U.S.
Sarah: hits a missile site on Greater Tunb — an island Iran occupies but the UAE claims — while Tehran quietly frees an American after nearly two
Sarah: years. If you're just joining us
Sarah: here's the backdrop: since the U.S.-Israel war on Iran began in February
Sarah: Tehran has used the Strait of Hormuz as a military pressure point and as economic leverage
Sarah: disrupting a waterway central to global energy flows.
Sarah: A U.S.-backed effort to settle traffic-management rules faltered
Sarah: and Washington has been striking Iranian maritime defenses and missile or drone capabilities while trying to reopen commercial shipping.
Rich: This is Iran War Daily.
Rich: Strikes creeping north toward Tehran
Rich: a contested island in play
Rich: one dual-national walking free — and we're gonna ask what got traded for her.
Rich: Sarah, start me on that island.
Sarah: Here's Jon Gambrell at ABC News:
Quote: The United States intensified its strikes targeting Iran early Thursday
Quote: hitting targets further north as American forces also fired into a ship it accused of trying to break its naval blockade on the Islamic
Quote: Republic. Iran retaliated with missile and drone fire targeting Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait before dawn.
Sarah: So, the Hormuz escalation update: per ABC News, U.S.
Sarah: forces pushed strikes farther north early Thursday — into areas around Tehran for the first time this round — and fired on a ship Washington
Sarah: says was trying to break the naval blockade.
Rich: So the blockade stopped being a threat and turned into actual shooting.
Rich: A vessel disabled by U.S.
Rich: forces — that's enforcement with live rounds now.
Sarah: And Iran answered, again per ABC — missile and drone fire at U.S.
Sarah: facilities in Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait before dawn.
Sarah: The conflict is spilling well past Iran's own borders.
Rich: Iranian officials put the toll at more than 35 dead, over 300 wounded — their count, uncorroborated.
Rich: But strikes reaching the capital's air-defense perimeter tells you the ceiling people kept asking about hasn't been hit.
Rich: It's still climbing.
Sarah: And the interim deal that priced this thing calm a week ago is, in ABC's framing, shredded.
Sarah: The battlefield's moved; the paper hasn't kept up.
Sarah: Here's The National:
Quote: An Iranian-occupied UAE island in the Arabian Gulf was hit by US strikes on Wednesday during a 90-minute wave of attacks.
Quote: The US military's Central Command said Greater Tunb island was home to Iranian missile launch sites.
Quote: The island is one of three, along with Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa, occupied by Iran since 1971.
Sarah: New category of target here.
Sarah: The National reports the U.S.
Sarah: hit missile launch sites on Greater Tunb — an island Iran has occupied since 1971, but that the UAE claims as its own.
Sarah: That's different from the southern coastal sites we've been watching all week.
Rich: Right — this is disputed real estate.
Rich: Abu Dhabi's been asking for Greater Tunb back for decades, and now the U.S.
Rich: is putting ordnance on it.
Rich: Somebody in the Emirati foreign ministry is doing very careful math tonight.
Sarah: And per The National, it was a 90-minute wave, with the IRGC claiming retaliatory strikes on U.S.
Sarah: facilities in Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait — claims, I'll stress, we're keeping separate from confirmed damage.
Rich: The part that lands for me: the UN's shipping agency says Hormuz is now too dangerous for commercial traffic
Rich: and two ships already turned around.
Rich: That's the number that shows up on an insurance desk in the morning.
Sarah: Here's Al Jazeera:
Quote: The United States has launched another wave of attacks on Iran
Quote: striking what it said were military targets along the country’s southern coast and near the Strait of Hormuz
Quote: while Tehran claimed fresh attacks on US military facilities across the region as a fragile ceasefire comes under growing strain.
Rich: Ninety minutes. CENTCOM timestamps it — strikes done by 7:30 Washington time, coastal defenses and cruise missile storage on Greater Tunb.
Rich: That's Iranian-occupied UAE territory getting hit by American munitions.
Sarah: And that's the category shift.
Sarah: All week, the targets were southern coastal sites — places like Bandar Abbas, Chabahar and Jask.
Sarah: Greater Tunb is a contested island Abu Dhabi has claimed for decades.
Sarah: Different kind of map.
Rich: So where does Abu Dhabi land now?
Rich: The U.S. just put ordnance on the exact real estate the Emiratis have been asking Tehran to hand back — and did it without
Rich: as far as we can tell
Rich: asking anyone in the Gulf first.
Sarah: Keep the other half in view, though.
Sarah: The IRGC — per Al Jazeera — claims it hit U.S.
Sarah: military sites across the region in return.
Sarah: No independent corroboration in front of us.
Sarah: CENTCOM confirms what it fired; Tehran's counter-claim stays a claim.
Rich: Right — one side gives you a timestamp, the other gives you a press release.
Rich: And nobody's shown me a crater.
Sarah: Laura Tingle, writing in ABC News:
Quote: US-Iranian citizen Dena Karari has been freed after almost two years of detention in Iran.
Quote: Her lawyer said she was held on "bogus charges" of collaboration with a hostile state and espionage.
Quote: Ms Karari is now outside Iran and US President Donald Trump has welcomed the "gesture of goodwill" from the regime.
Sarah: One name out of Iran today doesn't fit the rest of the rundown.
Sarah: ABC News reports Dena Karari, a U.S.-Iranian dual national held since December 2024, is out and already outside the country.
Sarah: Her lawyer, Jared Genser, calls the charges — espionage, collaboration with a hostile state — bogus.
Rich: One out. After we just walked through strikes pushing north and a ship disabled off the coast.
Rich: So the whole diplomatic signal from Tehran today is a single dual-national on a plane.
Sarah: And Trump welcomed it as a “gesture of goodwill” — his words.
Sarah: Fine, but goodwill from whom, and through which channel?
Sarah: Doha, Islamabad, Oman — nobody's claiming it yet.
Rich: Goodwill that touches exactly zero of the hard files.
Rich: Nothing on the nuclear question, nothing on the proxies, and other detainees are still sitting in Evin.
Rich: This is the kind of release that gets laundered into a headline win and covers nothing underneath it.
Sarah: That's the asymmetry here.
Sarah: Every other item today points up the escalation ladder — Karari points the other way.
Sarah: Whether that's a crack in the door or a one-off gesture, we don't have the channel to say.
Sarah: BBC News writes:
Quote: The US said it had launched a fresh wave of strikes against Iran on Wednesday as President Donald Trump warned Tehran it "better behave".
Quote: The US military said "Iranian military capabilities used to threaten vessels" moving through the Strait of Hormuz had been targeted.
Quote: Air defences also sounded in the capital Tehran, according to state media.
Rich: So the target list gets a name now: Trump's threatening bridges and power plants if Tehran doesn't show up next week.
Rich: That's civilian infrastructure — the electricity and the river crossings, not a missile site.
Sarah: Careful, Rich — he threatened that; he didn't strike it.
Sarah: What the U.S. military actually confirmed today is hits on “Iranian military capabilities used to threaten vessels” through Hormuz
Sarah: plus air defenses sounding over Tehran
Sarah: per state media. And Iran's counter-claim is its own category: Tehran says it struck U.S.
Sarah: targets in Bahrain and Kuwait.
Sarah: I've got no independent corroboration of damage on that in front of me — so it stays a claim.
Rich: Bahrain and Kuwait — that's where U.S.
Rich: bases sit. If even a fraction of that lands, the second-order bill runs straight through the Gulf.
Rich: And Ghalibaf's telling state media Tehran has “no reason” to honor the deal if it doesn't benefit.
Rich: That's the negotiator calling the paper dead in daylight.
Sarah: Which pairs badly with Trump's answer on a deadline — no deadline
Sarah: just “they better behave.” Fifth straight day of hostilities
Sarah: and the framing hasn't moved an inch.
Host: If you've got feedback, a story idea, or a correction for Iran War Daily, send it our way at iranwardaily at lantern podcasts dot com.
Host: We do read your notes, and they help sharpen the show.
Host: What we're watching next: the talks window next week
Host: after Trump threatened strikes on bridges and power plants if Iran doesn't return to negotiations.
Host: Links to every story we covered today are in the show notes
Host: so if one of them caught your ear
Host: you can go straight to the source from there.
Host: That's Iran War Daily for today.
Host: This is a Lantern Podcast.