On Monday, the US president Donald Trump threatened to expand his administration’s bombing spree on Iranian vessels that come “anywhere near” the US naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz that the president ordered over the weekend.
Trump wrote on social media that Iranian ships seen approaching the blockade “will be ELIMINATED immediately, using the same kill system we use against drug traffickers on ships at sea.”
“It’s fast and brutal,” added the president.
of the US military demonstrated on Monday, attacking a ship in the eastern Pacific that was accused, without reported evidence, of involvement in “narcotics trafficking operations”. The attack killed at least two people and brought the known death toll from Trump administration bombings in international waters to more than 170.
Mutual threats
Meanwhile, as the US on Monday was starting its naval blockade of Hormuz, a spokesman for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps issued Iran’s own warning to the US.
“If the war continues, we will unleash capabilities that the enemy has no idea about,” said Sardar Mohibi. according to The IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency. “We will discover methods of warfare that the enemy will have little ability to counter.”
As Iran’s Press TV says reportedIranian Lt. Col. Ebrahim Zolfaqari also commented on the blockade, which began at 10:00 a.m. EST on Monday, stressing that “vessels associated with the enemy do not and will not have the right to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.”
“Other ships will be allowed to transit the strait in accordance with the regulations of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Zolfaqari said. “If the security of the ports of the Islamic Republic of Iran is compromised, no port in the Persian Gulf or the Sea of Oman will remain safe.
Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz to many ships after the US and Iran launched an illegal war six weeks ago. The waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman is crucial trade road, including for fossil fuels from the region and has become a key point of negotiation as the death toll in the Middle East rises.
After talks led by the vice president JD Vance screwed up, Trump has written Sunday on his platform “Social Truth” that “The United States Navy, the best in the world, will begin the process of BLOCKING any ship trying to enter or exit the Strait of Hormuz. At some point, we will reach the basis of “ALL ALL IN, ALL OUT”, but Iran has not allowed this basis to said: “Iran is not allowed to me. somewhere, of which no one knows but them.”
“THIS IS extortion in the world and the leaders of countries, especially the United States of America, will never be extorted,” continued Trump. “I have also instructed our navy to seek out and interdict any vessel in International Waters that has paid tolls to Iran. No one paying illegal tolls will have safe passage on the high seas. We will also begin destroying the mines the Iranians have placed in the Straits. Any Iranians who fire at us or at peaceful vessels will be blown to H!”
The president again on Monday threatened any Iranian ships “approaching our BLOCKADE” and also said that “34 ships passed through the Strait of Hormuz yesterday, the highest number by far since this senseless closure began.”
As member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on Monday it became clear they had no plans to join Trump’s blockade, China’s Defense Minister Dong Jun, said: “Our ships are moving in and out of the waters of the Strait of Hormuz. We have trade and energy agreements with Iran. We will respect and honor them and expect others not to interfere in our affairs. Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz and it is open to us.”
Summarizing an interview with Salvatore Mercogliano, maritime historian at Campbell University in North Carolina, Al Jazeera reported On Monday, the researcher “expected the US Navy to turn away ships exiting the strait while keeping a distance from Iran’s missile and drone range.”
It is possible that the US action could result in “two competing blockades”, Mercogliano said. “This has the potential to completely freeze shipping in and out of the Strait of Hormuz.”
The ‘drug boat’ example
As has been the custom since the U-boat bombing began last September, the US Southern Command posted an unclassified video clip of Monday’s attack in the eastern Pacific on social media. SOUTHCOM described the bombing as “a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization,” but did not provide any evidence against the boat’s operators.
Monday’s deadly attack came days after the April 11 US bombing of two other ships in the eastern Pacific, attacks that killed at least five people. United Nations experts and human rights organizations have condemned bombings in international waters as extrajudicial killings AND murder – and argued that those who ordered and carried out the attacks should be prosecuted for murder.
“More killing,” The Intercept’s Nick Turse wrote in response to Monday’s boat bombing.
Hours before SOUTHCOM announced the final strike, Turse reported THAT The Trump administration “is waging a pressure campaign against the top inter-American human rights watchdog to suppress a possible investigation into illegal US attacks on ships in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.”
Brian Finucane, a senior advisor to the US Program at the International Crisis Group, said Monday that it’s “ridiculous how the Trump administration is so happy to continue to post footage of these unlawful killings but not defend the legal merits of these attacks.”
Last month, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights held a hearing during which experts TESTIFIES to the illegality of boat strikes.
“The administration’s desire to play imperial superpower in the region cannot be a reason to completely shift the foundations of international law,” Angelo Guisado, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, told the committee.
