{"id":73434,"date":"2026-04-19T21:08:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T21:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/73434\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T21:08:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T21:08:15","slug":"marines-seize-iranian-cargo-ship-trump-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/73434\/","title":{"rendered":"Marines seize Iranian cargo ship, Trump says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"pw-incontent-excluded article-paragraph skip\">U.S. Marines took custody of an Iranian-flagged cargo ship that tried to get past the U.S. naval blockade, President Donald announced Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">In a post on social media, Trump said that the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer the USS Spruance stopped the Iranian-flagged vessel Touska, a ship under U.S. Treasury sanctions, and fired a direct hit on it. The Spruance, one of the ships operating near or in the Strait of Hormuz, told the ship to stop and turn back, Trump said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">\u201cThe Iranian crew refused to listen, so our Navy ship stopped them right in their tracks by blowing a hole in the engineroom,\u201d Trump wrote in his post. Marines now have \u201cfull custody\u201d of the Touska.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">The tracking side MarineTraffic <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marinetraffic.com\/en\/ais\/details\/ships\/shipid:657791\/mmsi:422032600\/imo:9328900\/vessel:TOUSKA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">reported<\/a> that the Touska was sailing in the Persian Gulf earlier on Sunday. It is not clear how many Marines took part in the seizure of the cargo ship. U.S. Central Command has not issued a statement about the incident as of press time.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tTop Stories This Week\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">It\u2019s the first direct action against a ship by American forces since the U.S. announced its blockade for ships trying to leave or reach Iranian ports. The blockade was itself in response to Iran restricting access to the Strait of Hormuz, a vital maritime route for oil and other commodities. The military has forced more than 20 ships to turn back prior to this. Yesterday ships from Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired on two Indian tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, with Iran announcing it would reimpose \u201cstrict control\u201d over the waterway in response to the U.S. blockade.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">On Thursday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine said that sailors are <a href=\"https:\/\/taskandpurpose.com\/news\/us-iran-blockade-warning-shots\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">authorized to fire warning shots<\/a> at ships attempted to cross the blockade. He also noted that U.S. forces could board a ship and take it over \u201cif need be.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">The Spruance is assigned to the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and has been operating in the Arabian Sea. It is one of more than a half dozen Navy destroyers sailing in that sea. Additionally, the USS Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group, carrying roughly 2,200 Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, is in the area.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\t\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776632895_976_250319-N-ML799-1660K.jpeg\" class=\"max-w-[100%]\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" fetchpriority=\"low\"  \/>\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Task &amp; Purpose Video<\/p>\n<p>Each week on Tuesdays and Fridays our team will bring you analysis of military tech, tactics, and doctrine.<\/p>\n<p>\t\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Nicholas Slayton is a Contributing Editor for Task &amp; Purpose. In addition to covering breaking news, he writes about history, shipwrecks, and the military\u2019s hunt for unidentified anomalous phenomenon (formerly known as UFOs).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. Marines took custody of an Iranian-flagged cargo ship that tried to get past the U.S. naval blockade,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73435,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9911,2656,34],"class_list":{"0":"post-73434","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iran","8":"tag-adsafety","9":"tag-central-command","10":"tag-iran"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116433420575264986","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73434","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=73434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}