Sailors aboard the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Spruance prepare for a replenishment-at-sea with fleet oiler USNS Henry J. Kaiser at sunset during Operation Epic Fury on March 10, 2026. ()
The U.S. Navy has forced 13 ships to turn around in the Strait of Hormuz as it enforces a naval blockade against Iran that is proceeding as planned, according to the Pentagon’s latest public assessment.
At a news briefing Thursday, Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said 13 ships made the “wise decision” to turn back rather than attempt to breach the blockade.
“As of this morning, U.S. Central Command has not been required to board any particular ships,” Caine said alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of U.S. Central Command.
The comments provided the latest details of a U.S.-Iranian maritime standoff in one of the world’s most important waterways.
On Wednesday, Central Command said a U.S. Navy destroyer turned back an Iran-flagged cargo ship in the Gulf of Oman.
USS Spruance redirected the cargo vessel Tuesday after it left the Strait of Hormuz transiting along the Iranian coastline, CENTCOM said in a post to its official X account Wednesday.
The ship headed back to Iran, according to the post, which did not identify the ship involved. No vessels connected to Iran have penetrated the U.S. blockade east of the strait since it began Monday, CENTCOM said.
Ship watchers cast doubt on that claim Thursday, saying satellite images suggested that several tankers, including those connected to Iran, China and India, have made it past the U.S. barricade and were in Iran.
In addition, other sanctions-compliant tankers were headed to Iraq with their location responders turned off, one ship watcher posted Thursday on X.
Meanwhile, as many as 20 ships — a combination of tankers, cargo ships and other vessels — had transited the strait in the first 24 or so hours following the U.S. blockade, The New York Times reported Wednesday, citing an unidentified U.S. official.
It remained unclear whether the commercial transits indicated that shipowners and captains were more confident in traveling the vital waterway as the U.S. works to wrest control away from Iran.
On Saturday, at least one U.S. destroyer transited the strait, a critical oil pipeline, as part of a broader effort to clear Iranian sea mines from the area.
The guided-missile destroyer USS Spruance patrols the Strait of Hormuz after successfully redirecting an Iranian-flagged cargo vessel that attempted to evade the U.S. blockade, marking the 10th vessel turned back since operations began, U.S. Central Command said Wednesday. (U.S. Central Commad/U.S. Navy)
The Navy also is rushing minesweepers to the Persian Gulf. At least one of them, the littoral combat ship USS Canberra, was in the region on Monday.
The U.S. blockade includes the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea east of the Strait of Hormuz, encompassing the entirety of the Iranian coast. It isn’t limited to ports and oil terminals, CENTCOM said in a notice to mariners earlier this week.
The action follows a breakdown in U.S.-Iran talks over the weekend aimed at ending hostilities in the Persian Gulf and getting Iran to forfeit its nuclear materials.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump turned up the pressure on Iran, sanctioning more than two dozen individuals, companies and ships associated with the county’s illicit oil transportation network, the Treasury Department said in a statement.
The sanctions target the Iranian and Russian petroleum sales organization controlled by Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani, who has deep connections to the Iranian regime, the Treasury Department said.
Shamkhani is the son of senior Iranian security official Ali Shamkhani, who was killed Feb. 28 in the joint U.S.-Israel attack on Iran that started the war, Al Jazeera reported.
Spruance is part of the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group, which has been operating in the Arabian Sea. At least 10 other destroyers are in the Middle East.
On Saturday, the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, flanked by two destroyers, was spotted on satellite images operating in the Gulf of Oman just 124 miles from the southern coast of Iran, the BBC reported Monday.
That’s the farthest north and west the carrier has operated in the gulf in recent weeks, a ship watcher said.