America expands its strikes. Ammunition shortages control its war on Iran

The US Central Command announced the start of a new wave of attacks on Iran at dawn on Monday,  July 20, while Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan discussed by phone with his Qatari, Jordanian and Egyptian counterparts coordination to contain the escalation to consolidate security and stability in the region.

"The strikes will continue to weaken Iran's military capabilities used to attack commercial vessels and civilian seafarers passing through the Strait of Hormuz," U.S. Central Command said in a statement.

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on Sunday, in a statement, that a soldier was killed in northern Iraq during Saturday's detonation of unexploded ordnance resulting from an Iranian drone that had fallen earlier.

This brings the confirmed toll of U.S. military personnel killed since the United States and Israel launched the war on Iran on Feb. 28 to 17.

Trump: We struck Iran hard in honor of our dead soldiers

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday night that the latest strikes on targets in Iran were carried out in response to the deaths of U.S. military service members in the region.

Trump told reporters after returning from the World Cup final: "These great people, those great patriots, they were there fighting so that Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon, we hit them very hard again tonight."

In remarks as he returned to Joint Peace Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on Sunday evening, Trump said the United States controls the Strait of Hormuz and that Iran has lost most of its military capabilities after the recent U.S. strikes on Iran more than a week ago.

"They still have some missiles and some drones, and they have certain production capabilities, but they are not large," he added, stressing that "we are the ones who control the strait, and they don't control anything, and we will see what happens next."

US Military: We have ended the ninth round of strikes on Iran

U.S. Central Command said Monday it had completed its ninth round of strikes on Iran. "We targeted military command centers, air defenses, coastal observation sites and Iranian naval capabilities," it added.

Iranian reports said that  on Sunday-Monday night, 7 provinces inside Iran  were subjected  to US attacks for the ninth night in a row, as part of the current escalation, which lasted intermittently for about three hours, before the US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced the end of the round.

A Gulf source said that although the US attacks are limited to the night hours, Iranian attacks in the region, which the Iranian army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have been insisting are aimed at US bases, have almost non-stop as they have been launched around the clock.

The recent attacks on Iran were larger in scale than the eighth night, but smaller than the previous nights.

  The Washington Post quoted a US official with knowledge of the situation as saying that the United States is planning a wider war, pointing out that the US Department of Defense (Pentagon) is sending more of its military aircraft to the region.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, warned that the expansion of U.S. operations would be limited by dwindling air defense stockpiles and long-range munitions, and restrictions on the ability to send more troops and aircraft to the region.

CENTCOM: We disabled a ship and changed the route of another 6 in Hormuz

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said it had disabled a ship and diverted six other commercial vessels as part of the naval blockade imposed on Iran. CENTCOM said in a post on X that the crew of the missile destroyer USS John Finn continues to carry out its tasks as part of the naval blockade on Iran.

It added that US forces are continuing their operations with caution, attaching the post to a number of US military personnel while carrying out their duties during the operation.

4 ships crossed the Strait of Hormuz yesterday

Shipping data released by the London Stock Exchange on Monday showed that 4 ships crossed the strait on Sunday, compared to 8 the previous day. At  least three oil  product tankers and a giant crude oil tanker have entered the strait since Friday to load oil, the data showed.

     However, S&P Global analysts said in a note that LNG production and vessel loading in Qatar and the UAE continued at a relatively strong pace despite the disruption of outbound shipping, leading to increased LNG stockpiles aboard expected tankers within the Gulf.

"If the actual blockade of the Strait of Hormuz eases in the coming weeks, these ships could allow for a relatively rapid increase in exports, enabling the export of LNG that has already been produced and loaded," she added.