{"id":602013,"date":"2026-04-23T17:43:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T17:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/602013\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T17:43:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T17:43:08","slug":"trump-issues-shoot-and-kill-order-against-iranian-small-boats-in-strait-of-hormuz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/602013\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump issues ‘shoot and kill’ order against Iranian small boats in Strait of Hormuz"},"content":{"rendered":"

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump has ordered the U.S. military to \u201cshoot and kill\u201d small Iranian boats that deploy mines in the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>, he said Thursday, a day after Iran again displayed its ability to thwart traffic through the channel.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s post on social media came shortly after the U.S. military seized another tanker<\/a> associated with the smuggling of Iranian oil, ratcheting up a standoff with Tehran<\/a> over the strait through which 20% of all crude oil and natural gas<\/a> traded passes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have ordered the United States Navy to shoot and kill any boat, small boats though they may be … that is putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz,\u201d Trump posted, adding that U.S. minesweepers \u201care clearing the Strait right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am hereby ordering that activity to continue, but at a tripled up level!\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The Defense Department released video footage earlier Thursday of U.S. forces on the deck of the Guinea-flagged oil tanker Majestic X, which was seized in the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n

The move unfolded a day after Iran\u2019s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard<\/a> attacked three cargo ships in the strait, capturing two of them, in an assault that raised new concerns about the safety of shipping through the waterway. <\/p>\n

The powerful head of Iran\u2019s judiciary, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei<\/a>, said three \u201cviolating ships\u201d in the strait were \u201csubject to enforcement\u201d on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe show of strength by the armed forces of Islamic Iran in the Strait of Hormuz is a source of pride,\u201d he wrote Thursday on X, claiming that the Americans \u201clack the courage\u201d to approach the strait.<\/p>\n

Trump claims leadership rift in Iran<\/p>\n

Ship-tracking data showed the Majestic X in the Indian Ocean between Sri Lanka and Indonesia, roughly the same location as the oil tanker Tifani, which was seized earlier by American forces. It had been bound for Zhoushan, China.<\/p>\n

The vessel previously had been named Phonix and had been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2024 for smuggling Iranian crude oil in contravention of U.S. sanctions against the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n

There was no immediate response from Iran about the seizure.<\/p>\n

Trump this week extended a ceasefire<\/a> to give the battered Iranian leadership more time to come up with a \u201cunified proposal\u201d on ending the war, while maintaining an American blockade of Iranian ports.<\/p>\n

In a separate post Thursday, Trump claimed a leadership rift between moderates and hardliners was confounding Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cIran is having a very hard time figuring out who their leader is! They just don\u2019t know!\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

The president has repeatedly said over the course of the ceasefire that began on April 8 that his team is dealing with Iranian officials who want to make a deal, while acknowledging that his decision to kill several top leaders has come with complications.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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Fragile ceasefire in Lebanon<\/p>\n

Elsewhere on the diplomatic track, Lebanon and Israel were set to hold a second round of talks in Washington<\/a> to discuss the possibility of extending a truce<\/a> between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group.<\/p>\n

The latest war between Israel and Hezbollah<\/a> started two days after Israel and the U.S. launched attacks on Iran, after the Tehran-backed militants fired rockets into northern Israel.<\/p>\n

In a new show of the fragility of the ceasefire that went into effect Friday in Lebanon, Hezbollah said it attacked Israeli positions in southern Lebanon, targeting Israeli soldiers in the village of Taybeh.<\/p>\n

Each side has accused the other of breaching the 10-day truce.<\/p>\n

The standoff between the U.S. and Iran has choked off nearly all exports through the strait<\/a> with no end in sight.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Iran\u2019s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi was splattered with red liquid<\/a> as he left a building after a news conference in Berlin. The person believed responsible was immediately detained by police.<\/p>\n

During the event, Pahlavi criticized the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran, arguing that the agreement assumes the Iranian government\u2019s behavior will change and \u201cyou\u2019re going to deal with people who all of a sudden have become pragmatists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pahlavi, 65, has been in exile for nearly 50 years<\/a>. His father, Iran\u2019s shah, was so widely hated that millions took to the streets in 1979, forcing him from power. Nevertheless, Pahlavi is trying to position himself as a player in his country\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

Threat to Strait of Hormuz shipping<\/p>\n

Since the Feb. 28 start of the war between Iran, Israel and the United States, over 30 ships have come under attack in the waters of the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman.<\/p>\n

The threat of attack, rising insurance premiums and other fears have stopped traffic from moving through the strait. Iran\u2019s ability to restrict traffic<\/a> through the strait, which leads from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean, has proved a major strategic advantage.<\/p>\n

Jakob Larsen, the head of maritime security for BIMCO, the largest international association representing shipowners, said in a note Thursday that most shipping companies need a stable ceasefire and assurances from both sides of the conflict that the strait is safe for transit.<\/p>\n

The threat of mines, he wrote, was a \u201cparticular concern\u201d if traffic might return to normal levels one day. <\/p>\n

The ceasefire has been strained by the dueling U.S. attacks on Iranian ships and those by Iran on commercial vessels. It also remains unclear when, or if, the two sides will meet again in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, where officials say they are still trying to bring the countries together to reach a diplomatic deal.<\/p>\n

The conflict already has sent gas prices skyrocketing<\/a> far beyond the region and raised the cost of food and a wide array of other products<\/a>. Officials around the world have warned that the effects on businesses, consumers and economies could be long-lasting.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Madhani reported from Washington, and Keaten reported from Geneva.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump has ordered the U.S. military to \u201cshoot and kill\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,1927,28,12,3321,793,158238,7590,801,1570,228242,803,261903,1576,3,139727,111,2229,195128,210369,12955,21,792,19,22,20,25,24,964,1681,965],"class_list":{"0":"post-602013","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ap-top-news","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-energy-industry","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-hezbollah","15":"tag-international-agreements","16":"tag-iran","17":"tag-iran-government","18":"tag-iran-war","19":"tag-israel","20":"tag-jakob-larsen","21":"tag-military-and-defense","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-oil-and-gas-industry","24":"tag-politics","25":"tag-religion","26":"tag-reza-pahlavi","27":"tag-strait-of-hormuz","28":"tag-u-s-department-of-defense","29":"tag-united-states","30":"tag-united-states-government","31":"tag-united-states-of-america","32":"tag-unitedstates","33":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","34":"tag-us","35":"tag-usa","36":"tag-war-and-unrest","37":"tag-waterways","38":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}