US has assessments that Iran was planning to expand attacks against commercial ships, reports Al Arabiya

US has assessments that Iran was planning to expand attacks against commercial ships, reports Al Arabiya.

Threats to commercial shipping in Gulf and adjacent waters have recurred across past episodes of tension between Iran and Western or regional actors, and the market sequence in those episodes has been consistent: war-risk insurance premia and freight rates move first, crude benchmarks follow, and the front of the oil curve outperforms the back. The distinction that has mattered historically is between harassment or seizure and strikes that disable tonnage or close chokepoints; the former has tended to produce a risk premium that fades within weeks, the latter a sustained repricing only when physical supply is actually interrupted. An 'assessment' attributed to US officials, relayed through regional media, sits short of an actual incident, and such intelligence-linked headlines have on previous occasions preceded either deterrence signalling, escort deployments, or nothing at all. The actors' prior form is relevant: Iran has historically used maritime pressure as calibrated leverage rather than as a step toward sustained closure of transit routes. Worth watching are tanker traffic through the strait, any US naval or sanctions response, and whether the assessment hardens into attribution of a specific incident.