Nearly 100 American troops were injured in the last two weeks, the Pentagon says.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard said on Tuesday it had targeted American military sites, including air defence systems and a radar installation in Bahrain and Kuwait, while a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz reported being hit by an unknown shell, forcing its crew to abandon the ship and board a lifeboat.

Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan all said they had activated protections to ward off the attacks, but the extent of American injuries to objects across the region during the past week is likely to bring a greater review of Iran's revenge attacks.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said that the vast majority of those injured had experienced only"small injuries to the head"and 96% had returned to work since then. Parnell was responding to a New York Times report that the Pentagon has kept information on the injuries of troops from Iranian attacks. He denied that the Pentagon was hiding information about injuries.

Last week three American soldiers were killed in action in Jordan and Iraq.

The next ten nights of US air strikes did not force Tehran to release its control over the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of all crude oil and natural gas once traded in peacetime passed. Efforts to curb the costs this break is causing global trade and oil prices further complicated Monday, after Yemeni's Jews, backed by Iran, announced they were imposing a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia.

There was little detail about how the embargo could work, but a Heth official said that the Bab al-Mandeb Strait - at the southern end of the Red Sea, through which it usually exceeds about 12% of the world trade - would be closed to Saudis in response to the unfair <x0-mulet of the kingdom to the Yemenians for more than 10 years".