Iran Seizes Two Ships Seeking To Cross Strait Of Hormuz

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Wednesday their naval forces had seized two container ships trying to cross the Strait of Hormuz, despite US President Donald Trump announcing he was extending a ceasefire to allow more time for talks.

Despite the latest series of attacks on maritime traffic in the Gulf, a second round of US-Iran talks could take place within the next three days, the New York Post reported, citing Trump and unnamed Pakistani sources.
“It’s possible!” Trump reportedly wrote to the Post in a text message when asked about the sources in Pakistan, who had told the newspaper that a second round could happen within two to three days.

UK-based maritime security monitors confirmed that three commercial vessels had reported incidents involving gunboats in the crucial strait, the international gateway for the Gulf oil and gas industry which US and Iranian forces are battling to control.

“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval force this morning identified and stopped in the Strait of Hormuz two violating ships,” the Guards said in a statement.

“The two offending ships… were seized by the IRGC’s naval forces and directed to the Iranian coast.”

They identified one ship as the Panama-flagged container ship MSC Francesca and the Liberia-flagged Epaminodas. The tracking site Marine Traffic showed the last known positions of both vessels closer to the Iranian coast of the strait, northeast of Oman.

Earlier, the British maritime security monitor UKMTO said one container ship reported it was fired upon by a boat belonging to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards 15 nautical miles northeast of Oman, causing damage to the bridge but no casualties.

Separately, a third ship was fired upon and stopped in the water eight nautical miles west of the Iranian coast, UKMTO said, without identifying the attackers.

British Security firm Vanguard Tech identified it as the Panama-flagged container ship Euphoria, which it said was “transiting outbound of the Strait of Hormuz”.

‘Stateless, Sanctioned’
The US Navy is attempting to block vessels heading to and from Iranian ports, while Tehran has said vessels must seek permission to leave or enter the Gulf through the strait, a conduit for a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas in peacetime.

The US Defense Department said Tuesday that US forces had intercepted and boarded a “stateless sanctioned” vessel. AFP has identified the ship as one linked to Iranian activity. Both sides accuse the other of ceasefire breaches.

Before the latest attacks, Trump had said he had pushed back the end of the two-week truce following a request by Pakistani mediators and to give Iran’s “fractured” leadership time to form a proposal.

The ceasefire has brought some respite to a region engulfed in war for weeks but, with no agreement yet in place, uncertainty remains and has brought little relief to global markets.

Trump said the US blockade of Iran’s ports would continue, while Pakistani mediators try to revive a dialogue.

Iran has all but shut the strait in the seven weeks since the United States and Israel launched a massive attack on the Islamic republic that plunged the Middle East into war.

Pakistan Talks?
The fate of peace talks hosted by Pakistan remains unclear. A previous round collapsed with Tehran accusing the United States of making excessive demands over the Hormuz strait and its nuclear programme.

A White House official confirmed that Vice President JD Vance would not travel to Pakistan for a new round of negotiations as previously planned, pending the submission of an Iranian proposal.

Iran never announced whether it had decided to send a delegation.

In Lebanon, which was dragged into war when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel to avenge its killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Israeli strikes killed three people and wounded two others on Wednesday, Lebanese state media said.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron announced that a second French soldier, wounded in a weekend ambush against UN peacekeepers in Lebanon blamed on Hezbollah, had died.

A first soldier was shot dead in the Saturday ambush, for which Hezbollah has denied responsibility.

‘Blatant’ Violations
A separate 10-day ceasefire was agreed between Israel and Lebanon on Friday and included Hezbollah.

But the militant group on Tuesday said it had launched rockets and attack drones at northern Israel in response to “blatant” ceasefire violations, which it said included “attacks on civilians and the destruction of their homes and villages”.

The Israeli military said that day that Hezbollah “launched several rockets” towards soldiers still stationed in south Lebanon and that the military struck the launcher in response.

Israel and Lebanon, which have no diplomatic relations, will hold fresh talks in Washington on Thursday, a State Department official told AFP.

Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed at least 2,454 people since the start of the war, a Lebanese government body said in its latest toll.

They have also damaged or destroyed more than 62,000 housing units, according to Lebanon’s National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS).

AFP

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