World News Today Live Updates: Iran warns attacks on US military vessels to intensify if attacks continue
Iran warns attacks on US military vessels to intensify if attacks continue. (Photo: AP)
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced that it had fired a barrage of ballistic missiles toward a US aircraft carrier and a US Navy destroyer operating in the region, accusing the vessels of harassing Iranian shipping and enforcing an ongoing naval blockade against the country. US Central Command confirmed that both the carrier and the guided-missile destroyer successfully evaded the attacks and that no American personnel were harmed in the exchange. The missile strikes came shortly after US forces disabled two Iranian oil tankers and destroyed a third in what the Pentagon described as retaliation for earlier hostile action against American warships, with CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper warning the IRGC that any future attack on US ships would draw an even heavier toll on Iran’s tanker fleet.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth weighed in directly, posting that the US would “destroy (and sink)” Iran’s oil tankers if Iran fired on American ships, telling Tehran that all it needed to do was stop shooting at the Navy. He went further by noting that the US was prepared to strike Iran’s tanker fleet wherever it operated, whether in the Middle East or the Indo-Pacific, arguing that the fleet was defenseless since Iran lacks a real navy or air force.
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Key developments:
- Iran’s top military command has warned that strikes on US vessels will intensify and could expand further if what it calls the American “naval siege” and harassment of Iranian ships continues.
- US forces permanently disabled the tankers M/T Downy near Kharg Island and M/T Stark 1 near Jask, while a third unladen vessel, the M/T Kylo (also known as Noxen), was destroyed entirely in the Gulf of Oman after its crew abandoned ship.
- Iran’s IRGC Navy said separately that it had targeted three oil tankers sailing an “unauthorized route” through the Strait of Hormuz, along with three vessels it linked to the United States.
- Trump has downplayed the scale of the conflict, calling it “small potatoes” while claiming the US has “essentially” taken control of Iran, even as fighting along the Strait continues.
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