{"id":28310,"date":"2026-03-20T13:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T13:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/28310\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T13:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T13:57:08","slug":"us-targets-vessels-in-strait-of-hormuz-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/28310\/","title":{"rendered":"US Targets Vessels In Strait Of Hormuz"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pentagon<\/a> is targeting mine-laying vessels used by Iran to keep a stranglehold over the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>, U.S. military leaders confirmed on Thursday (April 20) via ABC News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the U.S. had destroyed 44 mine-laying Iranian vessels placed to stop shipping flow through the Strait of Hormuz, which serves as a vital waterway for trade along the Persian Gulf, in response to the U.S. and Israel’s ‘Operation Epic Fury’ in Iran. Caine confirmed that Air Force A-10 Warthog attack jets were “in the fight” and capable of hunting fast boats deployed by Iran to mine the strait.<\/p>\n

Brent Crude Oil, the primary global benchmark for crude oil pricing<\/a>, spiked to more than $119 per barrel on Thursday (March 19) after Iran attacked energy facilities in the Middle East in retaliation to Israel’s strike on its South Pars gas field, the New York Post<\/a> reports. Brent’s futures LCOc1 were reported to have increased by more than $10 to a high of $119.13, nearly matching a three-and-a-half-year peak reached on March 9, before settling at $114.77 a barrel, up $7.39 or 6.9%. <\/p>\n

U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude CLc1 was reportedly up to a high of $100.02 and a nearly $4 gain before settling at $0.27, or 0.3% at $96.59 a barrel, having been trading at its widest discount to Brent in 11 years. The average price for regular gas is reportedly $3.884, an increase from the $3.842 reported the previous day; $3.598 reported the previous week; $2.020 reported the previous week; and $3.102 reported the previous year, according to the American Automobile Association<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Israel attacked the South Pars gas field, the Iranian sector of the world’s largest natural gas deposit, which it shares with U.S. and Qatar on the other side of the Gulf, though President <\/a>Donald Trump<\/a> claimed the U.S. and Qatar had no involvement in the incident on Wednesday (March 18). Trump added that Israel wouldn’t attack Iranian facilities in South Parks unless Iran attacked Qatar, with QatarEnergy later claiming that Iranian missile attacks on Ras Laffan, one of its largest LNG plants, caused “extensive damage.” <\/p>\n

Vice President <\/a>JD Vance<\/a> and Energy Secretary Chris Wright will reportedly meet with top oil company executives in Washington this week as the price of gas continues to surge<\/a> amid the ongoing ‘Operation Epic Fury’ in Iran, sources with knowledge of the situation confirmed to POLITICO<\/a>. The American Petroleum Institution, which serves as the United States’ largest oil and gas lobbying association, confirmed Vance and Wright would address its board, which includes executives representing the world’s largest oil companies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pentagon is targeting mine-laying vessels used by Iran to keep a stranglehold over the Strait of Hormuz,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[978,102,34,37,101,13229,683,7195],"class_list":{"0":"post-28310","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-strait-of-hormuz","8":"tag-dan-caine","9":"tag-hormuz","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-strait-of-hormuz","13":"tag-stranglehold","14":"tag-u-s","15":"tag-vessels"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}