Strait of hormuz crisis: Iran fires on ships as us tensions surge and blockade standoff deepens

[0:00] good to have you tension is rising again between the us and iran with reports and attacks on [0:05] commercial shipping in the strait of hummus the uk maritime trade operations office says [0:10] the revolutionary guard has fired at all tankers in the waterway one of them is believed to be [0:15] carrying at least two million barrels of iraqi oil that comes after iran reimposed restrictions [0:21] on shipping less than 24 hours after declaring the strait open tehran says it's closing the [0:26] straight because the u.s refuses to lift its blockade on iranian ports because the united [0:33] states once again returned to the same breaches of commitments it returned to the same hostility [0:38] and malice it had shown before and naturally the response to this behavior is the action that our [0:43] khatam al-anbiya headquarters has now announced the straight is a straight under the full and intelligent [0:50] control of the islamic republic of iran at any time according to circumstances it will make use of [0:56] this straight the americans must accept that this is not a place for bullying not a place for [1:01] arrogance it is a place for humility a place for courtesy and respect towards the iranian nation [1:07] here they must know that they must greet the great nation of iran show respect act politely [1:12] and present their requests the president donald trump says the u.s won't be swayed by what he [1:18] called blackmail from iran very good conversations going on it's uh it's working out very well they [1:24] got a little cute as they have been doing for 47 years nobody ever took them on we took them on [1:30] they have no navy they have no air force they have no leaders they have no nothing actually their [1:36] leaders are it is regime change you call that enforced regime change but we're talking to them [1:44] they wanted to close up the straight again you know as they've been doing for years and they can't [1:51] blackmail us well in a moment we'll hear from our correspondents in tehran washington and dubai but [1:57] first let's take a look at how the flow of maritime traffic in the region has changed in the past 24 [2:01] hours this is a time lapse of what the straightforward moves looked like on friday and the hours after [2:06] iran announced the waterway was open there was a flurry of activity as boats moved into position to cross [2:12] and this is what it looks like now vessels are once again steering clear of the passage the red dots [2:18] and arrows you can see our oil tankers those in green are other commercial vessels including cargo [2:25] ships iranian forces have been warning ships to turn back one vessel shared the message it received [2:31] iranian navy uh this is bhaag alaqshmi go ahead sir i read you loud and clear [2:56] okay copied your message uh i will turn back and uh there is no permission to try [3:02] that's correct sir yes sir there is no permission for you you are going to have to go back [3:15] okay wait for the permission thank you okay thank you [3:25] ravi is live in dubai zain judging by that uh announcement that we just uh heard there the [3:30] iranians aren't messing around with their warning i mean reports of vessels making u-turns in the [3:34] strait so how much of a no-go zone has the waterway now become well exactly where it was weeks into the [3:45] war when iran began to use the strait of hormuz as the pressure point as it is doing again now it is [3:52] it is effectively completely blocked there is no traffic uh and what we understand is that iran is [3:58] saying that it will remain this way as long as the u.s blockade remains in place let's look at a [4:03] statement that was released earlier this evening by the irgc they said that several vessels did pass [4:08] through the strait but due to the violation of ceasefire conditions the american enemy did not [4:13] lift the naval blockade of iranian vessels and ports therefore from this evening the strait of [4:17] hormuz will be closed until this bucket is lifted the message goes on to say we warn that no vessel [4:23] should move from its anchorage in the gulf in the sea of oman and approaching the strait of [4:27] hormuz will be considered cooperation with the enemy and the violating vessel will be targeted [4:32] and that is what we have seen throughout the course of the day at least three different ships off the [4:36] course of oman one experiencing a splashdown of some kind of projectile near it two others being [4:41] directly fired on reportedly by the irgc navy and in one case being confronted by two speedboats of the [4:49] irgc so what we are seeing here is not just a blockade through radio chatter or through the threat [4:57] of the use of force but we are seeing uh the use of direct force as iran's navy continues to heavily [5:05] police the strait of hormuz continuing to use it as this pressure point all right zane let's uh let's [5:13] bring in ali hasham he's in tehran for us live uh ali so what is tehran's official justification for [5:19] all of this for this reversal of course how are they defining their new maritime rules to the [5:25] international community are wondering what's going on well restoring the old uh limitations on the [5:34] passage from the strait of hormuz is uh kind of uh explained by the iranians as a retaliation to the [5:43] united states uh blockade of iranian ports uh they say they've uh announced yesterday that they're lifting [5:52] the uh limitations uh while keeping authorization of iranian authorities to uh ships to pass through [6:00] the strait but the united states uh uh on uh president trump himself said that the blockade [6:08] will continue so for iran this is part of the deal the deal was not met by the americans so [6:15] they're not going to implement the implement their part of the deal aside from that the issue of lifting [6:23] the limitations on passage from the strait of hormuz was faced with a lot of uh objection here within [6:32] the politician politician layer and also among some of the people and we've seen yesterday how much this [6:41] had its implication we saw that in social media we saw that in uh several stances from politicians so [6:49] for the iranians they're still projecting power through the leverage of uh on straight or the [6:55] straight of hormuz especially that in the past this same issue of the strait was mentioned by the [7:02] supreme leader ayatollah khamenei and today we saw also uh several iranian officials stressing [7:10] on the importance of keeping the strait under the iranian authority all right ali let's bring in [7:18] some other developments as well because iran's state television has released a statement attributed [7:23] to the supreme leader was alba khamenei is uh been hasn't been heard from or seen in public [7:29] seems he was appointed after his father's killing well the statement says the army is now as in the [7:35] two previously imposed wars defending the water's soil and flag to which it belongs [7:40] just as its drone strike the american and zionist criminals like lightning the navy stands ready [7:46] to make its enemies taste the bitterness of new defeat so ali with a statement like that [7:52] when does it leave the prospect of diplomacy well it's clear the leader is also uh trying to uh intersect [8:02] with the diplomacy from another from another uh perspective from another dimension empowering the [8:10] uh diplomacy uh diplomacy by saying that uh iran is ready to fight you know these are all signals and [8:17] uh while uh diplomacy is currently among the very few ways of engagement between iran and the u.s [8:26] there is also a layer of psychological warfare that's going on president trump according to the [8:32] iranians is overwhelming the media with his own narrative and the iranians on the other side [8:37] want to show that they do not care and that they can continue to fight and we've been talking in the [8:43] past about the strait of hormuz that's also another uh one or another among the very few elements or [8:50] uh spaces of engagement there are also uh indicating and projecting through that um strait in order to [9:00] be exploited in the talks now for the iranians what the president president of the u.s said [9:06] over the past 24 hours regarding their own concessions uh regarding the zero enrichment forever uh the uh [9:16] moving of the stockpile of highly enriched uranium to the united states uh stopping to use the uh [9:22] strait of hormuz and stopping to finance their own allies in the region this had its own implications [9:29] and it was reflected in a way that many were asking is it true that the iranian negotiators are giving up [9:37] all these issues so the fact is that the iranians now are trying to reflect that they are not uh uh [9:44] into any negotiations that is not going to take into consideration the red lines live in tehran al-jazeera's [9:53] ali hasham thank you let's go back to zayn basravi to remind you he's live in uh in dubai so uh zayn we [9:58] were led to believe that some kind of diplomatic momentum was building in the region given all the [10:04] efforts uh in islamabad and now this of course i mean how are regional actors the gulf states [10:10] reading this situation well at the moment the gulf states weren't directly as involved in these [10:18] negotiations in islamabad it was really islamabad the go-between the pakistanis being the go-between [10:23] between the americans and the iranians the americans very largely really negotiating on behalf of [10:28] everyone the gcc the wider world the global economy so what gcc leaders were left doing [10:34] is observing and really seeking out any actuality now what do they want they want security stability [10:40] they want to return to normalized economic trade they want to return to the opening of the strait [10:44] of hormuz and hopefully a return to normalizing airspace getting airlines to come back reopening [10:50] those important hubs in the region for air travel and tourism so what gcc leadership and people [10:55] living here are looking for is actuality and at the moment the actuality on the ground is not at the [10:59] table in islamabad it is in the strait of hormuz the only place where these two sides seem to be [11:04] interacting is right now using their maritime military in the strait and what gcc leadership [11:11] think tanks analysts are are saying now is they're wondering a couple of things who's really in charge [11:16] in iran is it the civilian leadership is it the supreme leader maybe but at the moment the policy is [11:21] being enacted and the actions are seeming to dictate the policy and that's being carried out by the [11:26] irgc by the by the navy and so what we see leaders they're really looking at is that for indications of [11:33] what might come next and also they're looking at what the irgc is saying what iran's a recent statement [11:38] from iran reads iran will not make even the slightest compromise retreat or leniency and will defend [11:43] with all of its strengths the interests of the iranian nation so maximalist actions in the strait of [11:47] hormuz maximalist narrative in terms of rhetoric coming out as official party line from the iranian [11:53] government and compounding all that is the fact that what they are seeing playing out is still a [12:00] chokehold on the economy so what one emirat the analyst said is that what's happening right now in [12:06] the strait of hormuz is a dance the u.s and iran are engaged in a dance a kind of what he described as [12:11] a mating ritual and at the moment all the people in the region all the people in the global economies [12:17] that are affected by this can do is quote we have to see how this plays out and that's really [12:23] what what is happening at the moment the entire situation remains in limbo and so does global [12:28] economic health zayn many thanks i was just here was zayn basfari in dubai let's go to washington dc [12:35] here from john holman good to hear you see you uh john um so uh donald trump has made it clear that [12:42] he won't be blackmailed by um iran going forward nevertheless we have uh the statement from mojda [12:48] bahamane saying the navy stands ready to make its enemies taste the bitterness of new defeats also [12:54] further threats from the irgc i mean how is that going to be received from a president who says [12:59] he won't take comments like that we don't know it presently because um he was scheduled to be off [13:06] playing golf so we haven't had any announcements from the president since that comment in the morning [13:10] that iran was getting a bit cute in his words uh over the strait of humus um he downplayed it a bit [13:17] more actually than the iranian government themselves the uh the the significance of them taking this [13:22] straight what's being reported uh by the axios news outlet is that there was a meeting in the situation [13:30] room this is actually a suite of rooms that's under the west wing of the white house um uh the the where [13:37] leaders convene uh in cases of national security uh crises or when they want to have a meeting about [13:44] that and axis reported that not just president trump trump but vice president vance uh the secretary [13:50] of state marco rubio and the secretary of defense pete hegseth were all there so this is obviously [13:55] something if that report is true that they are thinking about talking about uh but this was [14:02] really in the contrast to the day before everything seems sweetness and light uh on friday president [14:07] trump was saying that they would get a deal within a day or two it seemed really likely that we'd be [14:12] heading back to islamabad for the negotiations we haven't heard any more on that either whether those [14:18] are still going to take place or that we understand that there are still messages between the two sides [14:23] so this is even going to be a hiccup uh that iran is just uh doing again what the united states is [14:29] doing because remember after the strip the iran said well the strait for moose will be opened up that [14:35] came from the foreign minister president trump uh fairly immediately said on true social we're going [14:40] to continue our blockade so it's either tit for tat in that way and the negotiations will continue [14:45] or there is something more serious happening okay john many thanks as john holman there washington dc