Trump says he ordered US Navy to ‘shoot and kill’ boats mining the Strait of Hormuz |
US President Donald Trump on Thursday said the US Navy would “shoot and kill” any boat mining the Strait of Hormuz, and claimed “infighting” has hobbled Iran’s ability to respond to peace proposals, even as The New York Times reported that hard-line generals had consolidated power under the new supreme leader.
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel was ready to renew the fighting with Iran and was awaiting a “green light” from the US to target Iranian energy sites and Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, whose father and predecessor Ali Khamenei was killed at the start of the war.
Israel and the US launched the bombing campaign on Iran on February 28 in a bid to destabilize the regime and destroy its ballistic missile and nuclear capabilities. The fighting entered a truce on April 8.
The ceasefire was originally conditioned on Iran reopening the Strait, and set to last two weeks, but Trump extended it hours before the early Wednesday deadline, while maintaining a US blockade that he imposed on Iran-linked shipping in the key waterway on April 13.
Although the US had focused much of its fire in the war on Iran’s navy, sinking and heavily damaging dozens of vessels, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps operates a fleet of small attack boats, some of which apparently survived the war. Those vessels typically carry mounted machine guns, and can be used for mining operations, though the US has yet to confirm that Iranian ships have been mining the Strait of Hormuz.
Nonetheless, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Thursday that he has “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,” he said, adding that US minesweepers were “clearing the Strait right now.”
“I am hereby ordering that activity to continue, but at a tripled up level,” he........