Washington, U.S. President Donald Trump Monday warned Iran that any naval vessels approaching American ships enforcing a blockade in the Strait of Hormuz would be \u201cimmediately ELIMINATED,\u201d as tensions escalated following the collapse of peace talks.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said that Iran\u2019s naval capabilities had been severely degraded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIran\u2019s Navy is lying at the bottom of the sea, completely obliterated – 158 ships,\u201d he wrote, while noting that Tehran still retains a limited number of \u201cfast attack ships.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat we have not hit are their small number of, what they call, \u2018fast attack ships,\u2019 because we did not consider them much of a threat,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He issued a direct warning to Iran against challenging the U.S. blockade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWarning: If any of these ships come anywhere close to our BLOCKADE, they will be immediately ELIMINATED, using the same system of kill that we use against the drug dealers on boats at Sea. It is quick and brutal,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The warning came as the United States began enforcing a blockade on Iranian ports at 10 a.m. ET Monday (7.30 om IST), targeting maritime access in the Strait of Hormuz after diplomatic efforts with Tehran broke down over the weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
U.S. Central Command said the blockade would apply to vessels of all nations interacting with Iranian ports and coastal areas, with ships subject to \u201cinterception, diversion, and capture\u201d if they fail to comply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Iran has condemned the U.S. move as \u201cpiracy\u201d and warned it would respond with \u201cdecisive\u201d force, raising the risk of renewed hostilities less than a week into a fragile ceasefire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tehran also signalled that no port in the Persian Gulf or the Sea of Oman would remain secure if its own facilities were threatened, underscoring the potential for escalation across the wider region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington, U.S. President Donald Trump Monday warned Iran that any naval vessels approaching American ships enforcing a blockade in the Strait of Hormuz would be \u201cimmediately ELIMINATED,\u201d as tensions escalated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-display","category-international","has_no_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2204"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2205,"href":"https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204\/revisions\/2205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsaxis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}