{"id":647578,"date":"2026-05-04T17:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T17:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/647578\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T17:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T17:14:09","slug":"us-launches-project-freedom-to-escort-ships-through-strait-of-hormuz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/647578\/","title":{"rendered":"US launches ‘Project Freedom’ to escort ships through Strait of Hormuz"},"content":{"rendered":"

By&nbspGavin Blackburn<\/a>&nbsp&&nbspEuronews<\/p>\n

\n Published on 04\/05\/2026 – 13:13 GMT+2\u2022Updated
\n 17:55\n <\/p>\n

The US military said on Monday that two American-flagged merchant ships had successfully transited the Strait of Hormuz after it launched a new initiative to restore the flow of ships through the crucial waterway.<\/p>\n

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Iran has effectively closed off the strait since the start of the war at the end of February and breaking its chokehold would ease global economic concerns and deny Tehran a major source of leverage in talks aimed at ending the war.<\/p>\n

But US President Donald Trump’s latest effort also risks reigniting full-scale fighting as the US and Iran steadily ramp up pressure.<\/p>\n

Iran’s effective closure of the strait, which runs between Iran and Oman, has caused a spike in worldwide fuel prices and rattled the global economy.<\/p>\n

The US-led Joint Maritime Information Centre is now advising ships to cross the strait in Oman\u2019s waters, saying it set up an “enhanced security area.”<\/p>\n

It was unclear whether shipping companies and their insurers will feel comfortable taking the risk given that Iran has fired on ships in the waterway and vowed to keep doing so.<\/p>\n

Iran has said the new US effort is a violation of the fragile ceasefire that has held for more than three weeks.<\/p>\n

But the US’ claims of commercial ships transiting the strait were denied by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Monday.<\/p>\n

“No commercial vessels or oil tankers have passed through the Strait of Hormuz in the past few hours and the claims of American officials are baseless and completely false,” the Guards said in a statement on Telegram.<\/p>\n

Iran’s navy fired “warning shots” at US warships in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, state media said, after the American military sent destroyers into the Gulf as part of a plan to help trapped commercial vessels leave.<\/p>\n

Those claims have been impossible to independently verify.<\/p>\n

But the US military denied on Monday that any of its Navy ships had been hit in the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

“No US Navy ships have been struck. US forces are supporting Project Freedom and enforcing the naval blockade on Iranian ports,” Central Command, which oversees US forces in the Middle East, said in a post on X.<\/p>\n

‘Project Freedom’<\/p>\n

US guided-missile destroyers entered the Gulf as part of the mission to escort ships through the vital Strait of Hormuz waterway, the US military said on Monday.<\/p>\n

The warships “are currently operating in the Arabian Gulf after transiting the Strait of Hormuz in support of Project Freedom,” US Central Command said on X, referring to the operation announced by President Donald Trump on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Trump said in a social media post on Sunday the US would “guide” ships out of the strait, warning that Iranian efforts to block them “will, unfortunately, have to be dealt with forcefully.”<\/p>\n

He described part of what he called “Project Freedom” in humanitarian terms, designed to aid stranded seafarers, many on oil tankers or cargo ships, have been stuck in the Persian Gulf since the war began.<\/p>\n

Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency later called Trump’s proposal part of his “delirium,” and the Iranian military command said on Monday that ships passing must coordinate with them.<\/p>\n

“We warn that any foreign military force, especially the aggressive US military, that intends to approach or enter the Strait of Hormuz will be targeted,” Major General Pilot Ali Abdollahi told state broadcaster IRIB.<\/p>\n

The United Arab Emirates said that Iran had fired two drones at a tanker affiliated with its state oil company ADNOC in the Strait of Hormuz, condemning the attack.<\/p>\n

“Targeting commercial shipping and using the Strait of Hormuz as a tool of economic coercion or blackmail represents acts of piracy by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps,” the foreign ministry said, adding that no one had been injured. <\/p>\n

The UAE called the incident a “flagrant violation” of UN Security Council Resolution 2817.<\/p>\n

Additional sources \u2022 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By&nbspGavin Blackburn&nbsp&&nbspEuronews Published on 04\/05\/2026 – 13:13 GMT+2\u2022Updated 17:55 The US military said on Monday that two American-flagged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":647579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1376,43,5897,202944,58088,44,172000,41,39,42,40,772],"class_list":["post-647578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-iran","tag-iran-war","tag-irgc","tag-news","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}