“Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces were observed preparing to launch rockets with sea mines into Strait of Hormuz,” a U.S. official told NBC News.
Last week, Trump said all mines laid in the Strait of Hormuz by Iran had been removed or detonated, and that Iran had been warned that any vessel seeking to lay new ones would be destroyed.
The IRGC vowed “punishment” in response to the U.S. strikes, later announcing it had launched attacks against U.S. military bases in Jordan. Jordan’s military said it had intercepted at least eight missiles Monday morning.
Iran also launched drones at an air base in the United Arab Emirates, with that country’s Defense Ministry saying its air force had “engaged” at least one drone over its territorial waters. Iran’s army said it had targeted locations “where helicopters and troops of the child-killing American military” are stationed at the UAE’s Al Minhad air base.
The Iranian Foreign Affairs Ministry warned that the country’s forces would “firmly respond as appropriate to any military aggression,” in a statement carried by the semiofficial Fars news agency.
CENTCOM refuted Tehran’s branding of its attack as an act of “aggression,” saying in its post that “Iran created the threat and the U.S. military eliminated it to protect civilian mariners, commercial shipping, and the free flow of global commerce.”
Speaking with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Kyrgyzstan on Monday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said “Iran has never welcomed war,” Fars news agency reported. But the U.S. had not “fulfilled its commitments,” he added as efforts toward a lasting peace deal between the U.S. and Iran faltered.
Larak Island, the site targeted by the U.S. strikes, is a small Iranian island located off the coast of Bandar Abbas in the Strait of Hormuz, the key trade route through which some 20% of the world’s oil passed before the war began.
The vital waterway has been largely closed throughout the conflict, with Iran launching a blockade on the trade route in a move that has sent energy prices soaring, while the U.S. has imposed its own blockade on Iranian ports in response.
On Monday, the IRGC said a supertanker had caught fire and was “completely stopped after striking two naval mines,” Fars news agency reported. NBC News was not able to independently confirm the report.
Posting on his Truth Social platform, Trump appeared to threaten the possibility of further action against Iran, posting what appeared to be an AI-generated video showing a military member looking out of an aircraft as what appears to be oil infrastructure explodes.
“Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!!” the video is captioned, accompanied by Trump’s sign-off. Before the war, Kharg Island, which Trump has repeatedly threatened to seize, accounted for more than 90% of Iran’s oil exports.
An Iranian energy official dismissed Trump’s apparent threat, telling Fars news agency that the posts were “absurd and the situation on Kharg is calm and stable.”
Hamid Bord, CEO of the National Iranian Oil Company, said oil operations had not stopped and that workers were busy repairing previous damage “without interruption.”
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