Iran said on Thursday it would respond with “long and painful strikes” on US positions if Washington renewed attacks, and restated its claim to the Strait of Hormuz, complicating Washington’s plans to assemble a coalition to reopen the waterway.
A senior official of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said any new US attack on Iran, even if limited, would trigger sustained retaliation against US regional bases. Aerospace Force Commander Majid Mousavi was quoted in Iranian media saying: “We’ve seen what happened to your regional bases, we will see the same thing happen to your warships.”
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said in a written message that Tehran would eliminate “the enemies’ abuses of the waterway” under a new management of the strait. “Foreigners who come from thousands of kilometres away … have no place there except at the bottom of its waters,” he said.
Trump options
President Donald Trump was scheduled to receive a briefing on Thursday on plans for fresh military strikes to compel Iran to negotiate, a US official told Reuters. Reports of the proposed briefing first emerged via Axios on Wednesday and pushed Brent crude above $126 a barrel before easing back near $114.
Axios said one option in the package involves using ground forces to take part of the strait to reopen it to commercial shipping. Trump is also considering extending the US naval blockade or declaring a unilateral victory.
A US State Department cable due to be delivered orally to partner nations by May 1 invited them to join a new “Maritime Freedom Construct” coalition. France, Britain and other countries have held talks but said they would only help reopen the strait once the conflict ends.
Deadlines, travel ban
Trump faces a formal US deadline on Friday to end the war or justify extending it under the 1973 War Powers Resolution. A senior administration official said hostilities had terminated under the April 8 ceasefire, allowing the deadline to pass without further action.
The United Arab Emirates banned its citizens from travelling to Iran, Lebanon and Iraq on Thursday and urged those in those countries to return home, citing regional developments.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that if the Hormuz disruption continued through mid-year, global growth would fall, inflation would rise and tens of millions more people would be pushed into poverty and hunger.
For Sri Lanka, the closure keeps fuel-shipping premiums embedded in CPC procurement after a 74.7% year-on-year jump in the March fuel import bill.
Sources: Ada Derana.
