Mohsen Rezaei, the military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has said Iran is set to sink US vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
The US blockade on vessels utilizing Iranian ports in the Gulf was implemented on Monday evening as a response to Iran’s near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz since the onset of the conflict.
Rezaei, a former commander-in-chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, IRGC, said that America has no rights to the area, saying that Tehran would target American ships in the Strait of Hormuz if the US chose to “police” this narrow waterway.
Rezaei, who was appointed as a military adviser by Khamenei last month, also threatened to take American soldiers as hostages if they landed on Iranian soil, demanding one billion dollars for each captive.
“[Donald] Trump aims to act as the police of the Strait of Hormuz, but we will not yield to our ten conditions during the brief negotiations regarding a maritime blockade,” he stated during a broadcast on state television last night, as reported by the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
“Prolonging the ceasefire does not serve our interests at all; this is my personal view. The pressure must be increased. Our launchers are currently aimed at the ships, and we will sink them all.
“A ceasefire will only hold significance when all our agreements and rights have been fulfilled and a statement has been presented to the security council [of Iran].”
The US Central Command (Centcom) reported that it prevented 10 vessels from departing Iranian ports within the first 48 hours of the blockade, although ship tracking data revealed that at least three ships departing from Iranian ports traversed the Strait of Hormuz, with some vessels later reversing, according to the Guardian UK.
