US says it has hit 6,000 targets in Iran war as Tehran moves to close Strait of Hormuz

Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who was reportedly injured in an air strike, has yet to appear publicly since his nomination last Sunday as supreme leader.

• US struck 6,000 targets, including 90 Iranian vessels
• Iran ordered Strait of Hormuz closed, disrupting oil shipping
• Global oil prices soared as Gulf energy targets were attacked

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The United States has struck around 6,000 targets since the start of the war against Iran late last month, the US military said on Thursday.

Among the targets hit were more than 90 Iranian vessels -- around 60 ships and 30 minelayers -- US Central Command, which is responsible for American forces in the region, said.

Meanwhile, Iran's new supreme leader ordered his forces to keep the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping lane shut on Thursday, as Tehran launched more devastating attacks on Gulf energy targets that sent global oil prices soaring.

The International Energy Agency warned the Middle East war could lead to to "the largest supply disruption" in history but US President Donald Trump said stopping the Islamic republic's "evil empire" was more important than crude prices.

Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who was reportedly injured in an air strike, has yet to appear publicly since his nomination last Sunday as supreme leader, and his defiant first message was read by a newscaster on state television.

Khamenei, whose father and predecessor Ali Khamenei was killed in the first wave of US-Israeli attacks at the start of the war, called for Gulf countries to close their US military bases and vowed to avenge "the blood of our children and grandchildren".

"The lever of blocking the Strait of Hormuz must definitely be used," Khamenei said of the waterway through which a quarter of the world's seaborne oil trade usually transits.

The Revolutionary Guards reacted swiftly, with the force's navy commander Alireza Tangsiri saying: "In response to the order of the commander-in-chief, we will deliver the harshest blows to the aggressor enemy while maintaining the strategy of closing the Strait of Hormuz."

Under attack from Iran, shipping in and around Hormuz has been at a near-standstill for days, with another three vessels targeted in the Gulf off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and Iraq.

Trump has faced intense political pressure as the global economic fallout of the crisis has mounted, and he has given repeated mixed messages on when the US air campaign might end.

As oil prices spiked above $100 a barrel, Trump wrote on social media that "of far greater interest and importance to me, as President, is stoping an evil Empire, Iran, from having Nuclear Weapons, and destroying the Middle East and, indeed, the World."