DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran has again declared the Strait of Hormuz closed, saying a vessel traveling along what it described as an “unauthorized route” was hit with a warning shot in the vital shipping corridor, raising fresh doubts about an already fragile ceasefire arrangement with the United States.
Soon afterward, U.S. Central Command announced that American forces had launched a third wave of strikes targeting Iran.
The video in the player above is from a previous report.
“The United States is imposing a heavy cost by continuing to degrade Iran’s ability to attack civilian mariners and commercial ships freely transiting the strait,” the military said.
U.S. Central Command said a Cyprus-flagged container ship targeted by Iran sustained “significant engineroom damage,” and that one civilian crew member remains missing.
Senior U.S. officials in Washington had earlier warned that talks aimed at reinforcing last month’s agreement to halt the war could not move forward unless the strait was secure. They had also indicated they expected Iran to make public assurances on that point.
But in an online statement Saturday, the Revolutionary Guards Corps said Iran had fired warning shots at what it called a “violating ship.” Iranian authorities also said the strait would remain closed indefinitely.
The statements came after the foreign ministers of Iran and Oman met Saturday to discuss the strategic waterway separating their countries, following several days of Iranian attacks on vessels and U.S. retaliatory action that further weakened the interim deal to end the war.
Iran’s new supreme leader, still unseen since the war began, also vowed in his first statement since the funeral of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that Iranians would avenge his killing in the war’s opening strikes on Feb. 28.
Such revenge “is the will of our nation and must certainly be carried out,” Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said in a statement carried on state television, hours after President Donald Trump threatened more missile attacks.
Oman said it and Iran agreed to keep talking about the Strait of Hormuz “at the technical and political levels,” a day after the United States called on Iran to publicly say the crucial waterway is open and ships won’t be attacked.
Iran accuses Washington of violating ceasefire deal
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he met with his counterpart in Oman to discuss “appropriate mechanisms for ensuring the safe passage of ships.”
The world for decades has considered the strait an international waterway. Iran has insisted that the strait now remain under its control and that it be allowed to charge ships moving through it, a stance it took after the war began. The U.S. urges mariners to transit on a southern route through Oman’s territorial waters.
About a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed through the strait before the war began. Iran’s grip on it during the war led to a global energy crisis, though oil prices have sharply dropped since wartime highs of $120 a barrel.
Iran’s top diplomat also accused the U.S. of violating the interim deal by ending waivers allowing Iran to sell crude oil on the open market in U.S. dollars. Washington ended them in response to the attacks on ships in the strait.
“Reality check: There can only be mutual compliance,” Araghchi wrote on X.
Trump says he responded to threats to kill him
A thousand “missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran, with thousands more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat,” Trump wrote on social media overnight
He said he was responding to threats “to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate” him. During Khamenei’s funeral, mourners held posters or banners calling for Trump to be killed along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump has declared the ceasefire over but said the U.S. would continue negotiations.
U.S. officials, speaking Friday on condition of anonymity about the current situation with Iran, said the resumption of strikes in recent days came after what they described as a rogue faction of Iranian hard-liners tried to sabotage the ceasefire.
Iran has insisted its theocracy is unified under the new supreme leader.
After the U.S. wrapped up its latest strikes on Thursday, more attacks reportedly hit Iran, raising questions about who else may be targeting the Islamic Republic.
Israel didn’t claim them, meaning the Gulf Arab states may have launched them, likely as a means to deter Iran from attacking them again. Iran on Thursday retaliated for U.S. strikes by targeting Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar.
The strikes in Iran over two days killed at least 17 people and wounded 115 others, Iranian Health Ministry spokesperson Hossein Kermanpour said.
Price and Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Sam Metz in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2026 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
