Iran opened fire on a container ship on Wednesday in the Strait of Hormuz, underscoring the danger to commercial vessels in a waterway crucial to global energy supplies as plans for ceasefire talks between Tehran and the United States in Islamabad faltered.
The morning assault came after US President Donald Trump indefinitely extended the ceasefire with Iran due to expire within hours, giving Tehran time to come up with a “unified proposal” ahead of possible negotiations.
A second ship came under fire in the strait a short time later with no reported damage, according to the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre.
The maritime monitoring centre did not immediately identify who fired on the second vessel, but suspicion immediately fell on Iran, whose leaders appear poised to drive a harder bargain with American negotiators this time after two other rounds of talks with the Trump administration ended in open warfare.
Hard-line supporters of Iran’s theocracy held rallies across the country late Tuesday that included the Revolutionary Guard moving missiles and launchers into public places for the first time since the ceasefire started in a sign of defiance to Israel and the US, which devoted much of their airstrike campaign to destroying the county’s ballistic missile arsenal.
While American and Israeli airstrikes have stopped in Iran — and Tehran’s missile attacks no longer target Israel and the wider Middle East — Wednesday’s attack in the strait and earlier American interdictions of Iranian ships suggest the threat remains at sea. Without any diplomatic agreement, those attacks may continue and further squeeze global energy supplies.
Trump said the US would continue its blockade of Iranian ports, which Iran has called “unacceptable,” and has indicated was a reason it had not yet agreed to join talks in Islamabad.
