Washington DC: The US and Iran had agreed to a two-week ceasefire on April 8. It seemed fragile, and less than a week later, the spectre of war in the Gulf region has returned.
The US blockade of Iranian ports near the critical Strait of Hormuz started a couple of hours ago, despite Tehran warning that no Gulf port will remain safe.
Now, Donald Trump has thundered back with another salvo targeting Iran.
Sharpening tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, the US President threatened to quickly and brutally eliminate Iranian vess
els if they dare to approach the American naval blockade.
“Iran’s Navy is laying at the bottom of the sea, completely obliterated – 158 ships. What we have not hit are their small number of, what they call, ‘fast attack ships,’ because we did not consider them much of a threat. Warning: 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,” Trump wrote in his morning (US Eastern time) post on Truth Social.
Movement of ships through Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway through which 20% of global oil passes, has again come to a near halt after a brief period following the ceasefire announcement last week.
To get an idea, around 125 vessels passed through Strait of Hormuz daily before the war broke out on February 28; now that number has been reduced to single digits.