Trump orders U.S. military to ‘shoot and kill’ Iranian small boats choking Strait of Hormuz

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump has or­dered the U.S. mil­i­tary to “shoot and kill” small Iran­ian boats that de­ploy mines in the Strait of Hor­muz, he said Thurs­day, a day af­ter Iran again dis­played its abil­i­ty to thwart traf­fic through the chan­nel.

Trump’s post on so­cial me­dia came short­ly af­ter the U.S. mil­i­tary seized an­oth­er tanker as­so­ci­at­ed with the smug­gling of Iran­ian oil, ratch­et­ing up a stand­off with Tehran over the strait through which 20% of all crude oil and nat­ur­al gas trad­ed pass­es.

“I have or­dered the Unit­ed States Navy to shoot and kill any boat, small boats though they may be ... that is putting mines in the wa­ters of the Strait of Hor­muz,” Trump post­ed, adding that U.S. minesweep­ers “are clear­ing the Strait right now.”

“I am here­by or­der­ing that ac­tiv­i­ty to con­tin­ue, but at a tripled-up lev­el!” he added.

Mean­while, it was still un­clear when, or if, the two sides would meet again in the Pak­istani cap­i­tal, Is­lam­abad, where me­di­a­tors are try­ing to bring the coun­tries to­geth­er to reach a diplo­mat­ic deal.

Ne­go­ti­a­tions ini­tial­ly planned for this week have not hap­pened. Iran in­sists it will not at­tend un­til the U.S. ends its block­ade on Iran­ian ports and ships. Amer­i­ca in­sists it will not take part un­til Tehran opens the strait to in­ter­na­tion­al traf­fic.

Footage shows US forces on deck of tanker

The De­fense De­part­ment re­leased video footage ear­li­er Thurs­day of U.S. forces on the deck of the Guinea-flagged oil tanker Ma­jes­tic X, which was seized in the In­di­an Ocean.

The footage emerged a day af­ter Iran’s para­mil­i­tary Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard at­tacked three car­go ships in the strait, cap­tur­ing two of them, in an as­sault that raised new con­cerns about the safe­ty of ship­ping through the wa­ter­way.

The pow­er­ful head of Iran’s ju­di­cia­ry, Gho­lam Hos­sein Mohseni Ejei, said three “vi­o­lat­ing ships” in the strait were “sub­ject to en­force­ment” on Wednes­day.

“The show of strength by the armed forces of Is­lam­ic Iran in the Strait of Hor­muz is a source of pride,” he wrote Thurs­day on X, claim­ing that the Amer­i­cans “lack the courage” to ap­proach the strait.

Ship-track­ing da­ta showed the Ma­jes­tic X in the In­di­an Ocean be­tween Sri Lan­ka and In­done­sia, rough­ly the same lo­ca­tion as the oil tanker Tifani, which was seized ear­li­er by Amer­i­can forces. It had been bound for Zhoushan, Chi­na.

The ves­sel pre­vi­ous­ly had been named Phonix and had been sanc­tioned by the U.S. Trea­sury De­part­ment in 2024 for smug­gling Iran­ian crude oil in con­tra­ven­tion of U.S. sanc­tions against the Is­lam­ic Re­pub­lic.

There was no im­me­di­ate re­sponse from Iran about the seizure.

Trump claims lead­er­ship rift in Iran

Trump this week ex­tend­ed a cease­fire to give the bat­tered Iran­ian lead­er­ship more time to come up with a “uni­fied pro­pos­al” on end­ing the war, while main­tain­ing an Amer­i­can block­ade of Iran­ian ports.

In a sep­a­rate post Thurs­day, Trump claimed a lead­er­ship rift be­tween mod­er­ates and hard­lin­ers was con­found­ing Iran.

“Iran is hav­ing a very hard time fig­ur­ing out who their leader is! They just don’t know!” Trump said.

The pres­i­dent has re­peat­ed­ly said over the course of the cease­fire that be­gan on April 8 that his team is deal­ing with Iran­ian of­fi­cials who want to make a deal, while ac­knowl­edg­ing that his de­ci­sion to kill sev­er­al top lead­ers has come with com­pli­ca­tions.

Lebanon and Is­rael to hold sec­ond round of talks

Else­where on the diplo­mat­ic track, Lebanon and Is­rael were set to hold a sec­ond round of talks in Wash­ing­ton to dis­cuss the pos­si­bil­i­ty of ex­tend­ing a truce be­tween Is­rael and the Hezbol­lah mil­i­tant group.

The lat­est war be­tween Is­rael and Hezbol­lah start­ed two days af­ter Is­rael and the U.S. launched at­tacks on Iran, af­ter the Tehran-backed mil­i­tants fired rock­ets in­to north­ern Is­rael.

In a new show of the fragili­ty of the cease­fire that went in­to ef­fect Fri­day in Lebanon, Hezbol­lah said it at­tacked Is­raeli po­si­tions in south­ern Lebanon, tar­get­ing Is­raeli sol­diers in the vil­lage of Tay­beh.

Each side has ac­cused the oth­er of breach­ing the 10-day truce.

The stand­off be­tween the U.S. and Iran has choked off near­ly all ex­ports through the strait with no end in sight.

On Thurs­day, Iran’s ex­iled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi was splat­tered with red liq­uid as he left a build­ing af­ter a news con­fer­ence in Berlin. The per­son be­lieved re­spon­si­ble was im­me­di­ate­ly de­tained by po­lice.

Dur­ing the event, Pahlavi crit­i­cized the cease­fire be­tween the U.S. and Iran, ar­gu­ing that the agree­ment as­sumes the Iran­ian gov­ern­ment’s be­hav­ior will change and “you’re go­ing to deal with peo­ple who all of a sud­den have be­come prag­ma­tists.”

Pahlavi, 65, has been in ex­ile for near­ly 50 years. His fa­ther, Iran’s shah, was so wide­ly hat­ed that mil­lions took to the streets in 1979, forc­ing him from pow­er. Nev­er­the­less, Pahlavi is try­ing to po­si­tion him­self as a play­er in his coun­try’s fu­ture.

Threats to ship­ping per­sist

Since the Feb. 28 start of the war be­tween Iran, Is­rael and the Unit­ed States, over 30 ships have come un­der at­tack in the wa­ters of the Per­sian Gulf, the Strait of Hor­muz and the Gulf of Oman.

The threat of at­tack, ris­ing in­sur­ance pre­mi­ums and oth­er fears have stopped traf­fic from mov­ing through the strait. Iran’s abil­i­ty to re­strict traf­fic through the strait, which leads from the Per­sian Gulf to the open ocean, has proved a ma­jor strate­gic ad­van­tage.

Jakob Larsen, the head of mar­itime se­cu­ri­ty for BIM­CO, the largest in­ter­na­tion­al as­so­ci­a­tion rep­re­sent­ing shipown­ers, said in a note Thurs­day that most ship­ping com­pa­nies need a sta­ble cease­fire and as­sur­ances from both sides of the con­flict that the strait is safe for tran­sit.

The threat of mines, he wrote, was a “par­tic­u­lar con­cern” if traf­fic might re­turn to nor­mal lev­els one day.

The cease­fire has been strained by the du­elling U.S. at­tacks on Iran­ian ships and those by Iran on com­mer­cial ves­sels.

The con­flict al­ready has sent gas prices sky­rock­et­ing far be­yond the re­gion and raised the cost of food and a wide ar­ray of oth­er prod­ucts. Of­fi­cials around the world have warned that the ef­fects on busi­ness­es, con­sumers and economies could be long-last­ing. —DUBAI, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (AP)

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Sto­ry by JON GAM­BRELL, JAMEY KEAT­EN and AAMER MAD­HANI | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Aamer Mad­hani re­port­ed from Wash­ing­ton, and Keat­en re­port­ed from Gene­va.