Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of the military\u2019s Central Command, said on Monday that U.S. warships shot down cruise missiles and drones that Iran fired at the ships and commercial vessels the Navy was guiding through the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
Army Apache helicopter gunships also sank six Iranian military speedboats that threatened the vessels, he said, adding that none of the Navy ships or commercial tankers were damaged.<\/p>\n
The exchange of fire threatened to shatter a fragile three-week cease-fire as President Trump seeks to break Iran\u2019s effective blockade of the strait by ordering American military forces to help stranded vessels exit the waterway.<\/p>\n
As part of the new naval operation, Admiral Cooper said that multiple Navy destroyers had steamed through the strait into the Arabian Sea, in an apparent effort to encourage hundreds of marooned commercial vessels to leave the strait by way of a sea lane the Navy has cleared of mines using naval robots.<\/p>\n
So far, only two U.S.-flagged merchant vessels have done so, though the admiral said that other commercial vessels were \u201cen route\u201d to transit the strait.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve now opened a passage through the Strait of Hormuz to allow for the free flow of commerce to proceed,\u201d Admiral Cooper said on a conference call with reporters in which he called out Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. \u201cU.S. forces are helping the international community in restoring the flow of global commerce, where the I.R.G.C. on the other hand is doing everything it can to terrorize and threaten commercial shipping.\u201d<\/p>\n
Admiral Cooper repeatedly sought to cast the mission as \u201ca defensive operation\u201d backed up by dozens of warplanes, attack drones, two aircraft carriers and several warships, and 15,000 troops. But he declined to say how the command will determine which commercial ships to guide.<\/p>\n