![\"Donald](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/untitled-1.webp\")
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U.S. President Donald Trump in a morning social media post ordered the U.S. military to \u201cshoot and kill\u201d Iranian small boats choking the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
Trump also said the military is intensifying its mine clearing efforts in the critical waterway.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have ordered the United States Navy to shoot and kill any boat, small boats though they may be\u2026that is putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz,\u201d Trump posted. \u201cThere is to be no hesitation. Additionally, our mine \u201csweepers\u201d are clearing the Strait right now. I am hereby ordering that activity to continue, but at a tripled up level!\u201d<\/p>\n
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP\u2019s earlier story follows below.<\/p>\n
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 The U.S. military on Thursday seized another tanker associated with the smuggling of Iranian oil, ratcheting up a standoff with Iran a day after its paramilitary Revolutionary Guards took control of two vessels in the crucial Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
The Defense Department released video footage of U.S. forces on the deck of the Guinea-flagged oil tanker Majestic X, which was seized in the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will continue global maritime enforcement to disrupt illicit networks and interdict vessels providing material support to Iran, wherever they operate,\u201d a Pentagon statement said.<\/p>\n
Ship-tracking data showed the Majestic X in the Indian Ocean between Sri Lanka and Indonesia, roughly the same location as the oil tanker Tifani, earlier seized by American forces. It had been bound for Zhoushan, China.<\/p>\n
The vessel previously had been named Phonix and had been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2024 for smuggling Iranian crude oil in contravention of U.S. sanctions on the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n
There was no immediate response from Iran on the news of the seizure.<\/p>\n
It comes a day after Iran attacked three cargo ships in the strait, capturing two of them, in a move that intensified its assault on shipping in the key waterway through which 20% of the world\u2019s traded oil passes in peacetime.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump\u00a0extended a ceasefire<\/a>\u00a0while maintaining an American blockade of Iranian ports. There was no immediate sign whether peace talks, previously hosted by Pakistan, would resume anytime soon.<\/p>\n The standoff between the U.S. and Iran has effectively choked off nearly all exports\u00a0through the strait<\/a>\u00a0with no end in sight.<\/p>\n On Thursday, Iran\u2019s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi was\u00a0splattered with red liquid<\/a>\u00a0as he left a building after a news conference in Berlin. The alleged perpetrator was immediately detained by police.<\/p>\n During the event, Pahlavi criticized the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran, arguing that the agreement assumes the Iranian government\u2019s behavior will change and \u201cyou\u2019re going to deal with people who all of a sudden have become pragmatists.\u201d<\/p>\n Pahlavi, 65, has been in\u00a0exile for nearly 50 years<\/a>. His father, Iran\u2019s shah, was so widely hated that millions took to the streets in 1979, forcing him from power. Nevertheless, Pahlavi is trying to position himself as a player in his country\u2019s future.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The threat of attack, rising insurance premiums and other fears have stopped traffic from moving through the strait. Iran\u2019s ability to\u00a0restrict traffic<\/a>\u00a0through the strait, which leads from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean, has proved a major strategic advantage.<\/p>\n The ceasefire has been strained by dueling U.S. 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.<\/p>\n The conflict already has sent\u00a0gas prices skyrocketing<\/a>\u00a0far beyond the region and raised the cost of food and\u00a0a wide array of other products<\/a>. Officials around the world have warned the impact to businesses, consumers and economies could be long-lasting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. President Donald Trump in a morning social media post ordered the U.S. military to \u201cshoot and kill\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[26],"tags":[23631,41,1804,1809,1366,38,1367,12221,1368,34,196,37,5650,1369,6280,3542,4038,23632,1096,23633,35,1370,49,187,876,23634,1807,1577,1371,1403,39,772,1372,1679,1585,392,309,23635,11492,391,683,2174,1373,51,1374,1257,23379],"class_list":["post-80530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-persian-gulf","tag-amor","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-cody-khork","tag-declan-coady","tag-defense-secretary","tag-donald-trump","tag-donald-trump-administration","tag-gabbard","tag-hegseth","tag-iran","tag-iran-war","tag-israel","tag-israel-lebanon-war","tag-israel-war","tag-israel-lebanon","tag-israel-lebanon-ceasefire","tag-israeli-prime-minister","tag-jd","tag-jd-vance","tag-khork","tag-kuwait","tag-medal-of-honor","tag-middle-east","tag-middle-east-war","tag-netanyahu","tag-news-alexander-lamorie","tag-nicole-amor","tag-noah-tietjens","tag-norwegian-cruise-line-holdings","tag-pentagon","tag-persian-gulf","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-president","tag-prime-minister","tag-tietjens","tag-trump","tag-trump-administration","tag-tulsi","tag-tulsi-gabbard","tag-u-s-president","tag-u-s","tag-u-s-central-command","tag-u-s-oil-prices","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-president","tag-vance","tag-vice-president"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80530","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=80530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}