Iran’s supreme leader has broken his recent silence with a defiant statement hailing Iran’s control over shipping in the strait of Hormuz and vowing to guard the country’s nuclear and missile programmes.

“Today, two months after the largest military deployment and aggression by the world’s bullies in the region, and the United States’ disgraceful defeat in its plans, a new chapter is unfolding for the Persian Gulf and the strait of Hormuz,” Mojtaba Khamenei said in a statement read by a state television anchor.

The statement said Tehran would secure the Gulf region and eliminate what he described as “the enemy’s abuses of the waterway”, and that “new management of the strait will bring comfort and progress for the benefit of all the nations of the region and economic blessings will bring joy to the hearts of the people”.

Iran has sought to extract a price for being attacked by exerting control over the strait, the narrow waterway through which about one-fifth of global oil typically transits.

Speaking to mark Persian Gulf Day in Iran, Khamenei also vowed that Iran would “guard its modern technological capacities – from nano to bio to nuclear and missile – as their national capital and will guard it like their maritime land and air borders”.

Scrawled in bunkers, the ‘first military art’ of the Iran War emerges

Bunker artwork drawn by troops in the Iran War often includes tallies of drone attacks and counts of hours spent in the confines of concrete shelters.

For thousands of American troops across the Middle East, the Iran War has been defined by the wavering siren just before a drone or missile attack, the dash to a bunker, and the monotony of waiting until it’s safe to emerge, sometimes hours later.

And when troops hunker down — whether in a concrete shelter or porta-potty — they often chronicle their trials and tedium through graffiti. Now, photos of the new war art are starting to emerge.