US forces launched a Hellfire missile into a ship’s engine room, after it allegedly ignored repeated warnings and attempted to enter an Iranian port despite an ongoing US naval blockade.
A general cargo ship ignored more than 20 warnings from U.S. forces on Friday as it tried to enter an Iranian port, the U.S. Central Command alleged.
In a statement issued Saturday, CENTCOM said US forces observed the vessel transiting international waters toward an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman, claiming that it issued “more than 20 warnings” while informing the vessel it was in violation of the U.S. blockade.
A U.S. aircraft ‘disabled’ the vessel by firing a Hellfire missile into the ship’s engine room after the crew allegedly failed to comply. The ship is reportedly no longer transiting to Iran.
U.S. forces have disabled five commercial vessels and redirected 116 to fully enforce the blockade as a ceasefire with Iran remains in effect.
Earlier this year, the U.S. launched the blockade in response to Iran effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz after the war in the Middle East began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Feb. 28.
The military action comes as uncertainty surrounds efforts to finalize a deal between the United States and Iran and open the Strait.
Disruptions to shipping through the waterway have rattled global markets, with oil, natural gas and fertiliser shipments facing significant delays.
While some commercial traffic continues to move through the Strait of Hormuz, volumes remain well below pre-war levels, increasing the strain on consumers and food producers.
The U.S. blockade seeks to limit Iran’s shipments and further weaken its access to cash. With military strikes, naval confrontations, economic pressure and fragile diplomacy unfolding simultaneously, the Middle East remains at one of its most dangerous moments in recent years, with fears of broader regional war continuing to grow.
US secretary of war Pete Hegseth told reporters at the U.S. Embassy in Singapore that the US blockade in Strait of Hormuz is “very much still in place.”
“It will be an open strait, a toll-free strait that the entire world can use, which is the way that it should,” Hegseth informed journalists.
In a detailed social media statement on Friday, the US president Donald Trump asserted that Iran must agree that they will never have a nuclear weapon or bomb. He added that the Strait of Hormuz must be “immediately open, no tolls, for unrestricted shipping traffic, in both directions.”
“All water mines (bombs), if any, will be terminated (we have removed, through detonation, numerous such mines with our great underwater mine sweepers,” Trump stated. He noted that “Iran will complete the immediate removal and/or detonation of any mines that are left, which will not be many!).”
