Trump orders Navy to 'shoot and kill' boats mining Strait of Hormuz
U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday he ordered the Navy to “shoot and kill” boats putting down mines in the Strait of Hormuz amid a U.S. blockade of Iranian ports on the waterway.
He said he’s also ordered the military to increase efforts to clear mines that have already been laid.
“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,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“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!”
Thursday morning, Trump also addressed what he described as “infighting” within the Iranian regime.
“Iran is having a very hard time figuring out who their leader is! They just don’t know! The infighting is between the ‘Hardliners,’ who have been losing BADLY on the battlefield, and the ‘Moderates,’ who are not very moderate at all (but gaining respect!), is CRAZY!” he posted on Truth Social.
Trump’s order comes during a cease-fire with Iran amid talks to end the war there. On Wednesday
Speaking to Fox News on Wednesday night, Trump said there was “no time pressure on this cease-fire extension” and dismissed reports of a three- to five-day window before the United States would resume military action as untrue, adding that he was “not in a rush” and wanted the best deal.
Trump said the U.S. military blockade “scares the Iranians more than the bombing.”
Saying that Trump had extended the cease-fire due to the fractured Iranian regime’s inability to present a unified position in negotiations, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed talks “are ongoing” and that Trump had made his red lines very clear.
“Iran can never obtain a nuclear bomb with which to threaten the United States and our allies and they must turn over the enriched uranium that’s in their possession,” said Leavitt, who acknowledged that the uranium was buried deep beneath the ground after the United States bombed Iran’s nuclear sites in June.
“It’s important to the president that they hand over that enriched uranium. He’s made that quite clear to them and now we’re waiting to hear back from the Iranian regime. The fact they cannot send a unified message yet, which is why the president decided to extend the cease-fire, shows just how successful Operation Epic Fury truly was,” she added.
“There’s a lot of internal division over there, the president understands that, and so we await their response.”
The comments out of the administration came amid an apparent stalemate with both sides enforcing respective maritime blockades that continue to paralyse commercial shipping through the key Hormuz Strait, while showing no sign of dispatching delegations to negotiations Pakistan is attempting to broker anytime soon.
Speaking after Iran’s military attacked and seized two container ships, and fired on a third, early Wednesday, Iranian chief negotiator Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf said reopening the strait was impossible amid “flagrant” breaches of the cease-fire and “bullying” by the United States.
“A cease-fire only makes sense if it is not violated by the maritime blockade and the hostage-taking of the world’s economy, and if the Zionist warmongering across all fronts is halted,” Ghalibaf wrote in a post on X.
His deputy, Hamidreza Haji Babaei, deputy speaker of parliament, claimed Thursday that funds from tolls paid by ships to transit the strait had been deposited into the account of the country’s central bank for the first time.
The state-run Tasnim News Agency did not provide details about how the tolls were collected, the amount, or who paid them.
Back in March, a figure of $2 million per passage that was circulating was denied by the Iranian embassy in India.
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