Free Republic

Iran announced Monday it will establish a new “restricted zone” near the Strait of Hormuz within the coming days — as the flailing nation desperately tries to expand its control over the critical chokepoint. The exclusion zone will span from where the US blockade of Iran begins to other areas of the Gulf, Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said on Sunday in an interview with state TV. Rezaei said that any ship that sails into the restricted zone will be placed on a sanctions list. “Any ship that enters this area with the intention of...

US special forces spent four months conducting a secret mine-clearing mission in the Strait of Hormuz in an attempt to open up the waterway, the Financial Times reported Sunday. Iran has said it placed mines in international and Omani waters following the outbreak of the war. The International Maritime Organization estimated in June that roughly 80 mines had been deployed along important shipping routes. The covert operation was carried out amid ongoing exchanges of strikes between the US and Iran in and around the Strait, according to people familiar with the mission. Navy SEAL divers worked with unmanned vessels, robots,...

The United States military destroyed three Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps crude oil tankers in the Persian Gulf Saturday – after Iran launched ballistic missiles at two US Navy vessels. Footage shows large tankers blown up in flames, as a thick plume of black smoke rise off the sea. A US military aircraft crew can be heard over radio warning an oil tanker near Kharg Island, before unleashing a barrage of missiles that lit the vessel in flames. “I’m preparing to fire. …You have three minutes to clear the crew,” the US is heard in a video filmed aboard a nearby...

WASHINGTON — Oman has quietly rejected Iran’s request to jointly charge service fees on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, The Post has learned — averting a clash with President Trump, who has threatened to rain down bombs on the US ally. A high-ranking regional official said that Muscat declined to consent to charging fees — even on a voluntary basis — for environmental and security services, contrary to a statement last week from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The terms of a proposed revenue-sharing deal had not been finalized, even by Tehran, a US official told The Post...

WASHINGTON — A purported deal between Iran and Oman to control the Strait of Hormuz and share revenue from fees is “not even close to done” and would be meaningless so long as President Trump’s blockade of Iran remains in effect, a US official told The Post. A spokesman for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed Wednesday that the two nations had agreed to terms to control the shipping bottleneck — but The Post’s source said that ill-defined terms are still believed to lack full approval from Iran’s leadership. “The deals don’t mean anything unless we approve it. It...

President Donald Trump on Monday reportedly told Fox News the U.S. would attack Oman if it interferes with the U.S. naval blockade against Iran, marking a new threat against a Gulf State widely viewed as neutral and peaceful.

Iran and Oman are close to an agreement to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz to shipping traffic that would see both countries collect a so-called “service fee” to cover environmental and security costs. The New York Times reported late Monday, citing Iranian and US officials familiar with the developing accord, that ships entering the strait from the Indian Ocean via the Gulf of Oman would be required to take a route through Iranian territorial waters. Vessels exiting the strait from the Persian Gulf would take a route near Oman’s coast along the south side of the strait. Iran’s Foreign...

A wide spread scale over the secret network used to move Iran's oil revenues around international sanctions has [received] criticism. Senior officials have discovered that [corrupt intermediaries] have misappropriated at least $1.6 billion, with some fleeing the country. The controversy has expose the unofficial network of so-called trusts: companies and intermediates entrusted with receiving and transferring oil revenues outside the international banking system. Speaking on state television on Sunday, the head of Iran's State Inspection Organization, Zabihollah Khodaeian, said one intermediart alone had failed to return $200 million in state funds before leaving the country. Khudaeian added that judicial authorities...

A contentious Senate hearing on a supplemental budget request of nearly $88 billion, largely earmarked to cover the ongoing war on Iran, revealed new figures about the war’s cost to date and the effects of the military’s Project Freedom initiative to escort commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz. The hearing did little, however, to provide concrete answers on what it would take to end the conflict. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared Tuesday before the Senate Appropriations Committee alongside the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, to defend the request, more than $67 billion...

Oil producers in the Persian Gulf are making plans to bypass the Strait of Hormuz with new pipelines and a new port after Iran has repeatedly attacked ships and blocked traffic. The idea is to minimize Tehran’s leverage on the waterway that once saw 20% of the world’s oil pass through it as the war stretches into its fifth month. Iran has already insisted that it will impose tolls on the strait, which could cost tens of billions of dollars. And in some cases, it is extracting millions of dollars of protection money per oil tanker. Two such projects are...

The unexplained attacks have added a dangerous new layer of uncertainty to an already volatile conflict, raising concerns that additional countries may now be conducting military operations against Iran without publicly acknowledging their involvement.New Airstrikes Came After U.S. Said Its Campaign Had EndedThe U.S. military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) announced Thursday morning that it had completed a coordinated operation striking approximately 90 targets inside Iran.Yet only hours later, Iranian state media reported another wave of explosions and airstrikes across the southern provinces of Bushehr and Sistan and Baluchestan.Those attacks occurred after the United States had publicly stated its operation was complete.CENTCOM...

Iranian and Middle East diplomats held crisis talks in Oman Saturday to respond to the US demand that Tehran issue a public pledge to keep the Strait of Hormuz open – while reportedly weighing whether to propose a new travel route along the critical waterway. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was meeting with Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi in Muscat to discuss “safe navigation through the Strait of Hormuz,” according to state media in Tehran. There were no indications top US officials were involved in the negotiations. Qatari officials, who have sometimes served in a mediating role between the warring...

President Trump just put Iran on a very short clock. By Saturday, the regime is expected to publicly acknowledge that the Strait of Hormuz is open and pledge that commercial ships will not be attacked. Washington is demanding more than another foggy diplomatic promise. Tehran must say the words in public, where the entire world can hold the regime to them. Axios reported that the demand was delivered both directly to Tehran and through regional mediators, according to three U.S. officials who briefed reporters Friday. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is expected to meet Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi in...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A tanker traveling off the coast of Oman in the Strait of Hormuz caught on fire early Tuesday morning after being struck by a projectile, the British military said.The attack was the latest targeting a vessel moving through the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, through which a fifth of all oil and natural gas traded once passed in peacetime. Iranian state television said the liquefied natural gas tanker came under attack after ignoring warnings but did not directly claim the assault. Tehran has repeatedly declared that only its approved route through the strait...

Iran launched a drone assault targeting Bahrain while a ship in the Strait of Hormuz separately came under attack Saturday in Tehran's likely response to overnight airstrikes by the United States. The U.S. had launched airstrikes overnight in response to an Iranian drone attack on a container ship trying to leave the strait Thursday, continuing a string of attacks that have shaken the war's uneasy ceasefire. Iran has insisted that ships must obey its orders and warned it will start charging fees for transit through the strait. However, ships have been increasingly trying to leave the Gulf in recent days....

President Donald Trump threatened Wednesday to "blow up" Oman if the longtime U.S. ally sided with Iran in seeking joint control over the Strait of Hormuz, according to reporting from the New York Post, Reuters and other outlets covering a White House Cabinet meeting. "If Oman doesn’t behave, we’re gonna have to blow them up," Trump said during the meeting, according to the New York Post.Trump said the Strait of Hormuz must remain an international waterway and rejected any arrangement that would place control or toll authority in the hands of Iran, Oman, or any other country, Reuters reported. The...

Food for thought. Iran Is Not Winning. It Is Unraveling. The prevailing narrative on Iran has it almost perfectly reversed. We are told that Tehran is winning a war of wills in the Gulf and that Donald Trump is gambling recklessly with the world’s most sensitive chokepoint. In reality, Iran is not consolidating strength; it is managing decline. And Trump’s play on the Strait of Hormuz has quietly forced energy markets to reprice security—tilting the balance decisively toward the Americas, and away from Europe, Asia and China. The Islamic Republic no longer resembles a confident revolutionary project. With the old...

The Iranian regime folks are not happy campers right now. They're being squeezed by the U.S. blockade that's costing them an estimated $435 million a day. As Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent explained, that's going to cause their Kharg Island operation to be "shut in" soon. That's the money that sustains the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that would then be cut off. Meanwhile, the U.S. is even seizing its ships, like the MV Touska, that tried to run the U.S. blockade with some bad materials aboard that could have helped their missile program. So what are the regime's options? They...

"UKMTO has received a report of an incident 15NM northeast of Oman," an alert read. "The Master of a Container Ship reported that the vessel was approached by 1 IRGC gun boat, no VHF challenge that then fired upon the vessel which has caused heavy damage to the bridge. No fires or environmental impact reported. All Crew reported safe." Between the start of the war and Sunday, April 20, a total of 33 reports of incidents affecting vessels operating in and around the Arabian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz (SOH), and Gulf of Oman were received. .....

“A glamorous Iranian woman living a lavish life in Los Angeles was arrested for allegedly trafficking deadly drones and bombs for Tehran. Shamim Mafi, 44, was taken into custody at Los Angeles International Airport on Saturday night and charged with allegedly brokering the sale of drones, bombs, bomb fuses, and millions of rounds of ammunition to be sold to Sudan, the US Attorney for the Central District of California said on Sunday. Mafi left Iran in 2013 and became a permanent US resident in 2016 under the Obama administration, officials stated. The Woodland Hills resident allegedly used Atlas International Business,...