U.S. President Donald Trump shared an AI-generated video on social media that he claimed depicted Iran’s major oil hub of Kharg Island being destroyed, but an Iranian energy official dismissed the claim as “laughable” as fighting between the two countries resumed after a pause that began in July.

Hours after Trump’s post appeared, there was no independent evidence indicating that Kharg Island had actually been attacked.

“Trump’s tweets are laughable and conditions in Kharg are calm and appropriate,” said Hamid Bovard, chief executive of Iran’s state-run National Iranian Oil Co.

Bovard said oil production and related operations on Kharg had continued without interruption. He added that workers were repairing damage from earlier attacks while also carrying out modernization projects, according to Nournews, a semi-official Iranian outlet associated with the country’s top security body.

“Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!! President DJT,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account on Sunday, offering no additional explanation or details.

Reuters analyzed the video accompanying Trump’s post and determined that the footage was most likely synthetically generated. Software designed to identify AI-manipulated imagery indicated that the dramatic explosion sequences had probably been created digitally.

Kharg Island is a critical component of Iran’s energy infrastructure. Before the war began with U.S. and Israeli attacks on February 28, the island handled roughly 90% of Iran’s oil exports. A successful attack on the facility could therefore severely disrupt international energy flows while placing additional strain on Iran’s economy.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Tehran did not want war but would respond forcefully to any attack.

“We will never remain silent in the face of any aggression and will respond decisively to the aggressors,” state media quoted him as saying on Monday before his planned trip to Kyrgyzstan.

It remained unclear whether Pezeshkian made those remarks before or after Trump published his claim about Kharg Island.

Iran also launched retaliatory attacks following an earlier U.S. strike on rocket launchers located on Larak Island, roughly 660 km (410 miles) east of Kharg. Iranian media reported that Tehran attacked two U.S. bases in Jordan, while Iran’s army said it struck the UAE’s Al Minhad air base early Monday.

The United Arab Emirates, however, rejected reports that its air base had been attacked, with its defense ministry describing the claims as false.

Iran’s foreign ministry said the attacks in Jordan were directed at U.S. facilities that had been used to support and launch the operation against Larak.

Iran’s army separately said its drone strike against the UAE air base targeted locations housing U.S. military personnel and helicopters. It described the operation as retaliation for casualties suffered during the Larak attack.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards also used air-defense missiles to bring down a U.S. drone that crashed into waters in the Gulf, according to the Mehr news agency, which cited a statement from the elite military force.

Iranian state television reported that a supertanker caught fire and was forced to stop completely after striking two naval mines in the southern portion of the Strait of Hormuz. The report cited a statement from the Revolutionary Guards.

The renewed fighting on Sunday came after several weeks during which the Trump administration had increasingly relied on economic pressure against Tehran and companies doing business with Iran, while placing less emphasis on direct military action.

U.S. Prepares More Sanctions Against Iran

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that Washington was likely to announce additional secondary sanctions every week as part of an effort to intensify pressure on Tehran, with banks expected to be among the first targets.

“We’re starting with the banks, and we’re telling the banks it’s not okay to have Iranian money and to aid the regime,” Bessent said in an interview.

After the United States on Friday sanctioned branches of Egypt’s Banque Misr in the United Arab Emirates over alleged financial connections to Iran, Bessent said Washington could next move toward completely excluding a financial institution from the dollar-denominated global financial system.

“You’re going to see a lot more of these every week,” Bessent told Reuters ahead of a meeting involving finance ministers and central bank governors from the Group of 20.

A U.S. official said the strikes against Larak represented the first known U.S. military action against Iran since late July. The official said U.S. forces targeted launchers on the small island, which sits in the Strait of Hormuz near the strategically important port of Bandar Abbas and overlooks major shipping routes entering and leaving the Gulf.

“Islamic ⁠Revolutionary Guard Corps forces were observed preparing to launch rockets with sea mines into the Strait of Hormuz,” the official said.

U.S. Central Command said in a statement that American forces had carried out “limited, precise” strikes against Iranian Revolutionary Guard personnel involved in laying mines. CENTCOM said those forces represented an “imminent threat” in the strait but did not provide further operational details.

Jordanian state television reported that the country’s armed forces intercepted eight missiles that entered Jordanian airspace. A Fox News reporter separately said on X that nearly all of the incoming missiles had been intercepted.

The latest threats to maritime traffic have already affected commercial shipping. Data showed that the number of clearly visible commodity-carrying vessels traveling through the Strait of Hormuz fell to about five per day over the weekend.

The actual number of ships using the waterway may have been greater because some vessels have turned off their automatic identification systems in an effort to avoid becoming targets.

The Revolutionary Guards said the supertanker that caught fire after striking mines had attempted to navigate the waterway illegally. According to a statement carried by Iranian state television, the Guards did not identify the vessel or its crew.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned that other ships violating its mandatory transit rules could face the same consequences.

Trump said last week that all mines in international waters in the Strait of Hormuz had either been removed or detonated. He also warned Iran that any vessel attempting to deploy additional mines would be destroyed.

Although Trump has repeatedly maintained that the Strait of Hormuz remains open, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards navy rejected that assertion as “an obvious lie” and reiterated that ships cannot pass through the waterway without Iranian authorization.

Before the current blockade, the Strait of Hormuz carried almost one-fifth of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas shipments. Iran, meanwhile, remains the third-largest producer within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.