The seizure was announced by President Donald Trump himself, who said that the vessel attempted to breach a blockade the U.S. has been maintaining around Iranian ports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cToday, an Iranian-flagged cargo ship named TOUSKA \u2014 nearly 900 feet long and weighing almost as much as an aircraft carrier \u2014 tried to get past our naval blockade, and it did not go well for them,\u201d Trump wrote on Truth Social.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe US Navy guided missile destroyer USS SPRUANCE intercepted the TOUSKA in the Gulf of Oman, and gave [it a] fair warning to stop,\u201d Trump continued. \u201cThe Iranian crew refused to listen, so our navy ship stopped them right in their tracks by blowing a hole in the engineer room. Right now, US Marines have custody of the vessel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe TOUSKA is under US Treasury sanctions because of [its] prior history of illegal activity. We have full custody of the ship, and are seeing what\u2019s on board!\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
The U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) published footage showing an American guided-missile destroyer opening fire on the Iranian vessel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/video><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe destroyer \u201cintercepted M\/V Touska as it transited the north Arabian Sea at 17 knots en route to Bandar Abbas, Iran. American forces issued multiple warnings and informed the Iranian-flagged vessel it was in violation of the U.S. blockade,\u201d the command said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It added that after Touska\u2019s crew \u201cfailed to comply with repeated warnings over a six-hour period, Spruance directed the vessel to evacuate its engine room.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The destroyer disabled the vessel\u2019s propulsion \u201cby firing several rounds from the destroyer\u2019s 5-inch MK 45 Gun into Touska\u2019s engine room,\u201d according to the command.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cUS Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) later boarded the non-compliant vessel, which remains in U.S. custody,\u201d CENTCOM said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
CENTCOM added that its forces \u201cacted in a deliberate, professional, and proportional manner to ensure compliance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/video><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe command later shared additional footage from the seizure, revealing that the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli, a part of the 31st MEU, was involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cU.S. Marines depart amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli (LHA 7) by helicopter and transit over the Arabian Sea to board and seize M\/V Touska. The Marines rappelled onto the Iranian-flagged vessel, April 20, after guided-missile destroyer USS Spruance (DDG 111) disabled Touska\u2019s propulsion when the commercial ship failed to comply with repeated warnings from U.S. forces over a six-hour period,\u201d CETCOM wrote on X.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Iran\u2019s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters accused the U.S. of violating the ceasefire, with its spokesman saying that the seized vessel was en route from China to Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cWe warn that the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran will soon respond and retaliate against this armed piracy by the US military,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Later, the semi-official Tasnim News Agency reported that the Islamic Republic launched drone strikes against several U.S. warships in the Arabian Sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The escalation came as Pakistan intensified diplomatic contacts with both the U.S. and Iran to ensure that talks planned for April 21 in Islamabad will be held.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Islamic Republic has not confirmed that it will be sending a delegation to the talks, which are widely seen as a last ditch effort to prevent the renewal of the war. Only a few days are left until the end of the ceasefire, and Trump has already renewed threats against Iranian energy facilities. Still, all recent reports suggest that both countries are still too far apart on key issues, like the fate of Iran\u2019s enriched uranium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A couple interesting videos from the Iranian ship being disabled and Marines taking custody after they didn’t heed warnings to stop. The interesting part is if these ships coming from China have any weapon systems? China was selling anti-ship missiles to Iran before the war, with reports of air defense radars to be sent from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16887"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16892,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16887\/revisions\/16892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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