Iran · War explained
The Iran war explained: eight months that killed a supreme leader, choked Hormuz and remade West Asia
From the 28 February strikes to the fight for the Strait of Hormuz: how the war unfolded, what it has cost, and why India is watching every tanker.
Eight months after the United States and Israel struck Iran, the war has killed a supreme leader, displaced millions across West Asia and turned the Strait of Hormuz, the channel for a fifth of the world's oil, into the most dangerous stretch of water on earth. As regional envoys meet in Tehran to head off a new round of fighting, here is how the conflict unfolded, and why it matters so much to India.
The road to war
The confrontation had been building for years. The United States walked out of the 2015 nuclear deal in 2018, and attempts to negotiate a new one in 2025 and 2026 failed. In June 2025 Israel and Iran fought the 12-Day War, which ended after US bunker-buster bombs struck the nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.
Iran emerged weaker. Its currency went into free fall, and protests over the economy broke out on 28 December 2025 and spread nationwide in January. On 8 January security forces opened fire; officials in Iran's own health ministry put the death toll at 30,000 or more. In the weeks that followed, the United States assembled its largest military build-up in the region since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The first strike
On 28 February, the US and Israel launched what Washington called Operation Epic Fury: nearly 900 strikes in the first 12 hours on Iran's missiles, air defences, military infrastructure and leadership. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in the first wave, along with dozens of senior officials. One strike hit a girls' school near Bandar Abbas, killing about 170 people.
The regime did not collapse. It hardened. Ali Larijani, the security chief, ran the country in the first days. Khamenei's son Mojtaba, seen as more hawkish than his father, was named supreme leader in early March. When Larijani was killed on 17 March, his replacement signalled that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps now dominated wartime decisions.
A regional war
Iran answered with hundreds of missiles and thousands of drones, not just at Israel but at US bases and embassies in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Oman and Jordan. The strategy was to widen the war until its cost became unbearable. Drones hit Dubai International Airport on the second day, flights across the region stopped, and in late March Yemen's Houthis opened another front.
On 2 March Hezbollah fired on Israel from Lebanon. Israel answered with strikes reaching Beirut and a ground invasion of the south; more than 11 lakh people had been displaced in Lebanon by late March.
The battle for Hormuz
The decisive front was the sea. Commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz fell by more than 90 per cent. Oil jumped from about $70 a barrel before the war to an average of $103 in March, and parts of Asia faced fuel shortages and rationing. Iran let some ships through, on its own routes and for a heavy toll, and in May set up an authority to run the strait.
On 7 April, as his deadline approached, President Donald Trump posted that "a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again." Within hours he agreed to a two-week ceasefire brokered by Pakistan. Talks in Islamabad between US Vice-President JD Vance and Iran's parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the highest-level contact since 1979, failed, and on 13 April the US Navy began blockading Iranian ports.
On 14 June Pakistan announced a memorandum of understanding, signed on 17 June, meant to end the war within 60 days: a halt to fighting in Lebanon, open passage through Hormuz, sanctions relief, and Iran's reaffirmation that it would not seek a nuclear weapon. It foundered on the strait. On 6 and 7 July Iran struck three ships using a US-recommended route; Trump declared the truce over. In the following week US forces hit about 140 targets with more than 300 strikes, two American soldiers were killed in Jordan, and Iran suspended its commitments.
Where it stands
The fighting eased through most of August. The US military says it has cleared Iranian mines from the international shipping lanes and opened a corridor along Oman's coast, and by mid-October Gulf oil exports were back at prewar levels, though more than twice as much now moves by pipeline. But tankers are still being attacked, and with elections in Israel and the United States days away, both governments are again threatening strikes.
The human toll, by official counts, runs to more than 4,000 dead in Lebanon, nearly 3,500 in Iran, dozens in Israel and the Gulf states, and 21 American service members. Independent tallies are higher.
Raisina Wire analysis
For India, the war has been an energy-security stress test. Hormuz is the artery for much of the crude that Indian refiners buy from the Gulf, and the spring price shock and Asian fuel shortages showed how quickly a closure travels to Indian pumps. The partial recovery of Gulf exports owes much to pipelines that bypass the strait, a reminder that diversifying routes matters as much as diversifying suppliers.
The diplomacy matters too. Pakistan's role as the indispensable mediator, from the April ceasefire to the June memorandum and this week's talks in Tehran, has given Islamabad a standing in Washington and the Gulf that New Delhi cannot ignore. And a regime now dominated by the Revolutionary Guards, under a hardline new supreme leader, is unlikely to give ground on the strait without a fight.
The next few days, with votes in Israel and the United States, will show whether the region drifts back to war. India's interest is clear: the oil must keep moving, and the Gulf, home to millions of Indian workers, must not burn again.