Oil prices soar as U.S. insists Strait of Hormuz is open amid ongoing attacks

Pakistan's government on Wednesday said it was "deeply concerned" by Iran's attempts to pull Saudi Arabia into the Middle East war, and it condemned threats by Yemen's Houthi rebels against the kingdom and Red Sea shipping.

Pakistan, which cemented its security ties with Riyadh with a mutual defense pact signed only last year, said it was "deeply concerned over attempts to drag the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia into the conflict in the Middle East and reiterates its unwavering support for the security, sovereignty, territorial integrity and prosperity of the brotherly Kingdom," in a statement from the foreign ministry posted on X.

The statement added that "any hostile act against Pakistani-flagged vessels or Pakistani maritime interests will be regarded as a grave threat to Pakistan's national security and sovereign interests."

The Joint Maritime Information Center in Bahrain, a military partnership that the U.S. is part of, said commercial traffic in the Strait of Hormuz fell to a three-week low Tuesday amid ongoing Iranian attacks on vessels. CBS News tracked just three commercial ships – two cargo vessels and the Chinese-owned tanker Hsin Ocean – transiting the strait on Tuesday.

Between July 13 and 19, only two ships transited the strait using the U.S.-backed "southern route" that hugs the coast of Oman. Both transits were dark, meaning the vessels had turned off their AIS broadcast systems, according to a Lloyd's List analysis.

Last week, Dimitris Maniatis, CEO of the Greek maritime risk management company Marisks said ship crews were unwilling to make the trip through the strait since the breakdown in the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding.

"There's nothing physically obstructing the navigation of any vessel willing to transit the strait, and there are vessels that trade locally and are entirely unaffected by everything that's going on; however, if we're talking about large ocean-going, internationally-owned and operated merchant vessels, nothing is going through," Maniatis told CBS News on Wednesday.

The U.S. military's Central Command repeated an assertion made by the Trump administration many times over the last two weeks on Tuesday evening, insisting that "despite Iranian aggression, the Strait of Hormuz remains open for commercial vessel traffic."

CENTCOM made the declaration while acknowledging more than 30 Iranian attacks on commercial vessels "that have endangered hundreds of innocent mariners and undermined freedom of navigation."

Jordan shot down four Iranian missiles Wednesday, and two others hit uninhabited areas, according to a s