US President Donald Trump has ordered the US Navy to shoot down any boat laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz, he announced on Thursday. Posting on his Truth Social platform, he said: “I have ordered the United States Navy to shoot and kill any boat, small boats though they may be (Their naval ships are ALL, 159 of them, at the bottom of the sea!), that is putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz. There is to be no hesitation.
“Additionally, our mine “sweepers” are clearing the Strait right now. I am hereby ordering that activity to continue, but at a tripled up level!”
The US military on Thursday seized another tanker associated with the smuggling of Iranian oil, ratcheting up a standoff with Iran a day after its paramilitary Revolutionary Guards took control of two vessels in the crucial Strait of Hormuz.
The Defense Department released video footage of US forces on the deck of the Guinea-flagged oil tanker Majestic X, which was seized in the Indian Ocean.
A Pentagon statement said: “We will continue global maritime enforcement to disrupt illicit networks and interdict vessels providing material support to Iran, wherever they operate.”
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, earlier seized by American forces. It had been bound for Zhoushan, China.
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 on the Islamic Republic.
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