Trump says US in no rush but 'clock is ticking' for Iran
US President Donald Trump earlier ordered the US Navy to "shoot and kill" any boats laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz.
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WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said Thursday (Apr 23) the United States is in no rush to end the war with Iran but "the clock is ticking" for the Islamic republic, as a third aircraft carrier arrived in the Middle East.
Iranian media reported blasts over the capital Tehran, a first since an increasingly tenuous ceasefire in the Middle East war came into effect two weeks ago.
It was not clear what caused the blasts, though an Israeli security source told AFP that their country was not currently striking Iran.
Prospective peace talks in Pakistan were hanging in the balance, meanwhile, with no sign of a return to diplomacy to end a standoff in the Strait of Hormuz.
Since Trump indefinitely extended a ceasefire in the Middle East war, the US and Iran have shifted their focus to Hormuz, a blockaded waterway through which a fifth of oil and liquefied natural gas exports ordinarily flow.
"I have all the time in the World, but Iran doesn't - The clock is ticking!" Trump said on social media, adding that Iran's military was destroyed and "their leaders are no longer with us, the Blockade is airtight and strong and, from there, it only gets worse."
Trump had earlier ordered the US Navy to destroy any Iranian boat caught laying mines in Hormuz, which Iran has blockaded since the start of the war that spread across the region following a massive US-Israeli attack on the Islamic republic.
"SHOOT AND KILL"
The USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier has arrived in the Middle East, the US military said Thursday, bringing the number of the massive American warships operating in the region to three.
A second carrier was operating in the Red Sea on Thursday, while a third is also in the region, according to social media posts by CENTCOM.
Iran's state news agency IRNA said the "sound of air defence firing" was heard in western Tehran, while the Mehr news agency reported that air defence systems were activated in several parts of the capital to counter "hostile targets".
Earlier, a US fleet had boarded a vessel in the Indian Ocean that was transporting oil from Iran and a senior Iranian official said Tehran had banked its first proceeds from the tolls it exacts on shipping through the strait.
Trump had said he "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 also said, without providing any evidence, that the US had "total control" over the strait.
"No ship can enter or leave without the approval of the United States Navy. It is 'Sealed up Tight,' until such time as Iran is able to make a DEAL!!!," he wrote.
Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz meanwhile said "we are awaiting a green light from the United States - first and foremost to complete the elimination of the Khamenei dynasty ... and additionally to return Iran to the Dark Age and the Stone Age".
Iran has vowed it would keep the strait closed to all but a trickle of approved vessels for as long as the US Navy blockades its ports, brushing off demands from Trump to both reopen Hormuz and surrender its enriched uranium.
The US responded to Iran's action by imposing its own blockade of Iranian ports, and on Thursday the Pentagon announced that US forces had "carried out a maritime interdiction and right-of-visit boarding of the sanctioned stateless vessel M/T Majestic X transporting oil from Iran, in the Indian Ocean".
The Washington Post earlier reported that it could take six months to completely clear the Strait of Hormuz of Iranian-laid mines, citing a Pentagon assessment.
Lawmakers were told that Iran may have placed 20 or more mines in and around the strait, some floated remotely using GPS technology which makes them harder to detect, according to the report.
A Pentagon spokesman told the AFP that the Post report was based on a "classified, closed briefing" but much of the information was "false".
"A six-month closure of the Strait of Hormuz is an impossibility and completely unacceptable to the Secretary," Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement shared with AFP, denying the report.
IRAN SHOWS OFF CONTROL OVER STRAIT
Iran flaunted its tightened grip over the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday with video of its commandos storming a huge cargo ship, after the collapse of peace talks that Washington had hoped would open the world's most important shipping corridor.
State television broadcast footage overnight of masked troops pulling up in a grey speedboat alongside the MSC Francesca, climbing a rope ladder to a shell door in the hull and jumping through brandishing rifles.
The footage, presented with an action-movie-style soundtrack and no commentary, also included views of another ship, the Epaminondas. Iran said it had captured both on Wednesday, accusing them of trying to cross the strait without permits.
Washington, which has been confronting Iranian ships in international waters to enforce a blockade of its own, said it had boarded another tanker, the Majestic, in the Indian Ocean on Thursday. That appeared to be a reference to a supertanker, also called the Phoenix, last reported off the coast of Sri Lanka carrying 2 million barrels of crude.
Tehran says it will not consider opening the strait until the US lifts its blockade of Iran's shipping, which Washington imposed during the ceasefire and Tehran calls a violation of that truce.
Trump cancelled threats to restart attacks on Iran in the ceasefire's final hours on Tuesday, but refuses to lift the blockade. There has been no formal extension of the ceasefire, and no plans have been announced for further talks.
The standoff between the US and Iran has effectively choked off nearly all exports through the strait, normally the route for a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas, with no end in sight.
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.
The ceasefire has been strained by duelling US attacks on Iranian ships and those by Iran on commercial vessels. It also remains unclear when, or if, the two sides will meet again in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, where officials say they are still trying to bring the countries together to reach a diplomatic deal.
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