The US is preparing to board and seize Iranian-linked ships to pile pressure on Tehran and force the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
The US military has drawn up plans to intercept tankers and commercial vessels in international waters, expanding its crackdown beyond the Middle East, the Wall Street Journal reported.
In tandem with a US blockade of Iranian ports, Donald Trump appears to be strengthening his economic chokehold on the regime.
Tensions have been rising between the US and Iran after the Islamic Republic closed the strait on Saturday morning, having reopened it the day before. It also fired on at least two container ships.
An Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander vowed the US would receive a “hard blow” if it attacked Iranian vessels.
- Iran shuttered the Strait of Hormuz again after accusing the US of maintaining its blockade of Iranian ports, and threatened to target ships attempting to transit the waterway
- Two Indian vessels were forced out of the Strait after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fired at them
- Referring to the attack, Donald Trump insisted that Iran “can’t blackmail us” after the Islamic Republic “got a little cute, as they have been doing for 47 years”
- The US military has drawn up plans to intercept Iran-linked tankers and commercial vessels in international waters
- Iran’s top negotiator said there has been “progress” in talks with the US, but “there is still a big distance” to overcome, with no date set for the next round of peace negotiations
- The Israeli military attacked Hezbollah after claiming it had violated the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon
- A suspected Hezbollah ambush killed a French peacekeeper and wounded three other soldiers in southern Lebanon
- Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, pledged to “make the enemies taste the bitterness of new defeats” and claimed Iranian forces had exposed the “weakness and humiliation” of the US and Israel to the world
- The Pope said it is not in his interest to debate Mr Trump after a row over the war