How the Cole Disaster Drove the U.S. to Develop New Warship Defenses
The Navy destroyers enforcing a blockade of Iranian ports carry weapons fielded after an American warship was attacked and nearly sunk more than 25 years ago.
The Navy destroyers enforcing a blockade of Iranian ports carry weapons fielded after an American warship was attacked and nearly sunk more than 25 years ago.
Marines are searching thousands of containers aboard the Touska, an Iranian cargo ship that the Navy disabled and seized on Sunday.
The military said it had disabled the vessel after it ignored repeated warnings to stop, amid a U.S. blockade of Iranian ports. Marines boarded the ship and seized it.
The U.S. blockade of shipments through the Strait of Hormuz would last “for as long as it takes,” the defense secretary said.
More than a dozen U.S. Navy warships are enforcing a blockade on all vessels from all nations entering or leaving coastal areas or ports in Iran.
A new pattern of deceptive activity by some vessels around the critical waterway suggests the new American blockade is changing how some ships linked to Iran are behaving.
In a thinly veiled critique of the war in Iran, China’s leader said the world could not risk reverting “to the law of the jungle.”
The U.S. military has provided few details on how it might carry out President Trump’s orders as he seeks to pressure Tehran on a peace deal. But history and established practices offer some clues.
Iran denied that the American destroyers had entered the strait, as negotiations for an extended cease-fire continued in Islamabad.
Iran’s response to days of aerial bombardment and long-range artillery strikes has proved more resilient than Trump administration officials anticipated.