The Latest: Key oil price spikes over $100 as Iranian attacks hit shipping

The price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, spiked back over $100 as Iranian strikes hit ships in the regions waters and the ongoing American-Israeli war with Iran showed so signs of slowing.

Thursday's major developments include Iranian attacks against commercial ships around the Strait of Hormuz and Iraq's port of Basra, escalating a campaign of squeezing the oil-rich Gulf region as global energy concerns mount. The U.S. campaign of airstrikes in Iran is now in its 13th day.

The Israeli military is also striking Iran and its militant ally Hezbollah in Lebanon, where more than 800,000 people have been displaced by the fighting.

Here's the latest:

In Iran, the country's new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei has still yet to be seen.

But Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian suggested online that Tehran sought the world to recognize Iran's "legitimate rights, payment of reparations" and international guarantees against future attacks to see an end of the war.

An Indian sailor was killed after a U.S.-owned crude oil tanker was attacked near the Iraqi port city of Basra, India's embassy in Baghdad said Thursday.

The vessel, Safesea Vishnu, sailing under the Marshall Islands flag, came under attack March 11 while operating near Basra, the embassy said.

The remaining 15 Indian crew members were evacuated and are safe, the embassy said.

Security force checkpoints in Iran's capital came under attack for the first time Wednesday night by suspected drones assaults, killing at least 10 people, a semiofficial news agency reported.

The Fars news agency, believed to be close to the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, reported the attacks. Other Iranian media cited its report.

Gunfire could be heard in the city as continuous airstrikes targeted the city Wednesday night. The gunfire appeared to come from the checkpoints, which often include members of the all-volunteer Basij force of the Guard and officer of Iran's police force.

It wasn't clear what kind of drones were used, though the United States is employing a reverse-engineered version of Iran's Shahed drone in the war.

Israel and the U.S. military's Central Command did not immediately respond to requests for comment over whether they were behind the attacks.

Such assaults, if intensified, could pressure the forces used to suppress demonstrations in Iran as the U.S. has said it hopes the Iranian people overthrow its theocracy at some point in the war.

Bahrain said Thursday it arrested four people for allegedly spying for Iran.

Bahrain's Ministry of Interior said a fifth person remains at large.

The ministry accused all five of having "used high-resolution photography equipment to photograph and record coordinates of vital and important locations" on behalf of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

The ministry alleged that material had been sent to the Guard using encrypted software.

It wasn't immediately clear if those detained had a lawyer.

Iran has been able to load an estimate 18.5 million barrels of oil for shipment since the start of the war on Feb. 28, said Homayoun Falakshahi, an analyst at commodities firm Kpler.

Of those barrels, 16.5 million were loaded in the Persian Gulf at Kharg Island, with the rest coming from its Jask terminal on the Gulf of Oman, he added.

Those shipments broadly appeared bound for China.

Bangladesh asked the United States to allow the country to purchase oil from Russia as supply shortages and surging crude oil prices pressure its economy.

Bangladesh's Finance Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury made the request during a meeting with U.S. Ambassador to Dhaka, Brent T. Christensen, on Wednesday.

The U.S. sanctioned Russian oil following Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Bangladesh heavily relies on imports of fuel from the Middle East, and the government started a rationing system for the vehicles after the war began. It has shuttered fertilizer factory to keep fuel flowing to power plants and closed universities in an effort to reduce energy consumption.

The country is also making effort to bring fuel from alternative sources. India has already supplied 5,000 tons of diesel as an emergency measure through a cross-border pipeline. Bangladesh has requested India to increase the volume of fuel supply.

Israel's military said it was working to intercept a missile launch from Iran early on Thursday morning.

It was the third such announcement Thursday, as Israel also said it was targeting Tehran with strikes.

Other overnight missile launches from Iran sent Israelis hurrying to shelters in areas from the very southern tip of the country, to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, to the Galilee and the northern border with Lebanon, where sirens were also sounded to warn of drone and rocket attacks from Hezbollah.

Kuwait's Defense Ministry said an Iranian drone smashed into a residential building Thursday in the small Mideast nation, wounding two people.

A container ship off Dubai in the Persian Gulf came under attack Thursday, sparking a small fire, the British military said.

The British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said the attack happened just before dawn. It said an "unknown projectile" hit the vessel as it was some 65 kilometers (40 miles) off the coast of Dubai's Jebel Ali port.

It added that the crew of the vessel were safe.

The price of a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, topped $100 a barrel early Thursday, just days after it spiked near $120.

Oil prices shot more than 9% higher as supply concerns worsened with Iranian attacks on commercial shipping around the Strait of Hormuz.

U.S. benchmark crude oil jumped to about $95 a barrel.

Read more here.

An attack on Iraq's Basra port early Thursday killed at least one person and forced authorities to halt operations at all the country's oil terminals, officials said.

Farhan al-Fartousi, the director-general of the General Company for Ports of Iraq, made the announcement in a statement carried by the state-run Iraqi News Agency on Thursday. Al-Fartousi said the attack targeted ships in the ship-to-ship transfer are of the Basra port on the Persian Gulf. He said it remained unclear if the ship was targeted by a flying or seaborne drone or a missile.

Rescuers recovered one dead body and helped 38 others after the attack. He said commercial ports in Iraq remained open, though the oil terminals had been shut.

Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization has identified the two tankers as the Safesea Vishnu, flagged in the Marshall Islands, and the tanker Zefyros, flagged in Malta.