• Source:JND

United States President Donald Trump on Monday issued a fresh threat to Iran, warning that if any of its "fast attack ships" comes close to the American blockade, they will be eliminated immediately. The warning comes as deadline for the start of the US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has passed.

Although there was no immediate confirmation whether the blockade has started.

In a post on Truth Social, he claimed that the Iranian Navy is laying at the bottom and their 158 ships have been obliterated. "Iran’s Navy is laying at the bottom of the sea, completely obliterated - 158 ships. What we have not hit are their small number of, what they call, fast attack ships, because we did not consider them much of a threat."

He invoked the US's strikes on drug-trafficking boats to warn the small but quick boat fleet in the Persian Gulf. He said, "If any of these ships come anywhere close to our BLOCKADE, they will be immediately ELIMINATED, using the same system of kill that we use against the drug dealers on boats at Sea."

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Highlighting the efficiency of the said 'system of kill', Trump boasted, "It is quick and brutal. PS 98.2% of Drugs coming into the U.S. by Ocean or Sea have STOPPED!"

Earlier on Monday, the US President had ordered his navy to initiate a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which is already effectively closed by Iran, since the start of war in February 28.

Trump had said that no ships would be allowed to transit the Strait and those paying tolls to Tehran would be sought and interdicted by the US Navy.

Why are fast attack ships important?

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, 60 per cent of the fast attack ships of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy are still intact despite six-weeks of strikes by the US and Israel.

The fast attack ships are a fleet of small and speedy vessels that can evade satellite detection and hide in underground pens along rocky coasts of the Strait.

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These vessels are capable of policing the key waterways and are operated by IRGC, unrelated to conventional Iranian Navy, as part of Tehran's pivot to an asymmetric navy in wake of the so-called Tanker War of 1980s when the US forces sank most of Iran's active fleet in one day.

Armed with rocket launchers, these ships are able to lay mines in the strait.


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