Trump Orders Navy to Kill Iranian Boats Mining Hormuz
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- President Trump ordered the U.S. Navy to 'shoot and kill' any small Iranian boats deploying mines in the Strait of Hormuz, announcing the directive on social media a day after Iran's Revolutionary Guard attacked three cargo ships and captured two in the waterway.
- The U.S. military seized the oil tanker Majestic X in the Indian Ocean between Sri Lanka and Indonesia; the vessel had been sanctioned in 2024 under the name Phonix for smuggling Iranian crude and was fraudulently flying a Guyanese flag, according to Guyana's Maritime Administration Department.
- Trump announced a three-week extension of the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire following talks at the White House between the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors, though both sides reported violations including an Israeli airstrike that killed three people in the Nabatiya area.
- U.S.-Iran negotiations remained deadlocked, with Iran refusing to attend talks in Islamabad until the U.S. ends its blockade of Iranian ports and the White House insisting Tehran first open the strait to international traffic.
- Trump claimed a leadership rift between Iranian moderates and hard-liners was confounding Tehran — a characterization Iran's president and parliament speaker publicly rejected, posting that 'We are all Iranians and revolutionaries.'
- Since the war began Feb. 28, over 30 ships have come under attack in the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, and Gulf of Oman, choking traffic through a waterway that normally carries 20% of the world's traded crude oil and natural gas.
- Pope Leo XIV, returning from a trip to Africa, urged the U.S. and Iran to return to talks as three U.S. aircraft carriers — including the newly arrived USS George H.W. Bush — deployed across the Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea, and Red Sea.
Why it matters: Trump's 'shoot and kill' directive marks a sharp escalation in rules of engagement in a waterway carrying 20% of global oil and gas, and the U.S. and Iran remain unable to agree on preconditions for talks — Iran demands the naval blockade end, the U.S. demands the strait reopen. With over 30 ships attacked since Feb. 28 and no diplomatic path forward, shipping through Hormuz stays choked, and any mine-laying incident could draw direct fire and widen the conflict.
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