Iran\u2019s \u2060Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Sunday it had closed the strait of Hormuz after a vessel travelled on an unapproved route and was struck, warning that any retaliation over the incident would be met with a \u201csevere response\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cA vessel that had jeopardised maritime security by switching off its systems was struck and \u2060brought to a halt,\u201d the navy of Iran\u2019s \u2060Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said in \u200ba statement, without giving any details about the ship.<\/p>\n
US Central Command said a short time later that its forces began a third round of strikes against Iran. \u201cThe United States is imposing a heavy cost by continuing to degrade Iran\u2019s ability to attack civilian mariners and commercial ships freely transiting the strait,\u201d the military said.<\/p>\n
A Cyprus-flagged container ship struck by Iran suffered \u201csignificant engine room damage\u201d, and a civilian crew member is missing, US Central Command said.<\/p>\n
The \u2060United Kingdom Maritime \u2060Trade Operations \u2060agency (UKMTO) said \u200bon Sunday \u2060that it received a report \u2060of \u200ban \u200cincident \u200cnine nautical \u200cmiles east of Oman. Military authorities have reported \u200ca container ship sustained damage \u200bto the rear of \u2060the vessel \u200bwhich has \u200bcaused \u200ba fire \u200bonboard, \u200cit \u200bsaid.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s statement said several ships attempted to move through the waterway on an \u201cunauthorised route\u201d and disregarded warnings to correct their course. The strait, the IRGC said, was closed \u201cuntil further notice\u201d and until \u201cthe end of US interference in this region.\u201d Acts of aggression against \u2060Iran \u201cwill be met with a severe response, and new enemy bases in the region will be targeted,\u201d the navy said.<\/p>\n
The latest incident comes amid efforts in Oman to discuss the fate of the strait. Iran\u2019s foreign minister \u200cAbbas Araqchi met Omani counterpart Sayyid Badr Albusaidi to exchange \u201cviews on appropriate mechanisms for the safe passage of \u200cships through the strait of Hormuz\u201d, according to a statement from Tehran.<\/p>\n
A senior Iranian source told Reuters \u200bthat Iran, the US, Qatar and Pakistan had agreed to negotiate in a call that \u200cmediators were trying to arrange for Saturday while Araqchi was in Oman. It was not immediately clear whether the efforts were successful.<\/p>\n
The latest diplomatic moves followed exchanges of rhetoric between Tehran and Washington. Iran\u2019s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, on Saturday vowed revenge for the killing of his father and predecessor, hours after US president Donald Trump threatened severe reprisals in the event of any attempt on his life.<\/p>\n
\u201cVengeance is the will of our nation and must inevitably be carried out,\u201d new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei said in a written message. \u201cThis matter depends neither on my personal existence nor on that of other officials. Whether we are present or not, it will come to pass,\u201d he wrote in his first message since his father\u2019s funeral this week. He said Iran had compiled a list of individuals to be targeted.<\/p>\n
Both sides carried out exchanges of fire earlier this week, rocking an interim agreement aimed at ending the war, which broke out in late February with massive US-Israeli strikes that killed the then supreme leader Ali Khamenei.<\/p>\n
Trump has declared the ceasefire over while leaving the door open for talks, and mediators have been trying to salvage a diplomatic solution, with Iranian media reporting that a delegation from Qatar travelled to Iran on Friday.<\/p>\n
Hours earlier, Trump had posted on his Truth Social platform that any attempt to assassinate him would lead the United States to \u201ccompletely decimate\u201d Iran.<\/p>\n
\u201c1000 missiles are locked and loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran, with thousands of more to immediately follow, should the Iranian government act on its threat, pronounced in many corners of the globe, to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate, the sitting President of the United States of America, in this case, ME!,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
News outlets Axios and Politico reported that Washington has given Tehran until Saturday to stop firing on commercial ships transiting Hormuz and acknowledge the waterway is open.<\/p>\n
With Agence France-Presse and Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s \u2060Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Sunday it had closed the strait of Hormuz after a vessel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":757691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-757690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757690","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=757690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/757691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}