Iran to declare new ‘restricted zone’ outside Strait of Hormuz – official Iran will announce a new “restricted zone” for shipping outside the Strait of Hormuz in the coming days, high-ranking security official Mohsen Rezaei has said. The US resumed strikes on Iranian targets last week, saying they were in response to Tehran hitting commercial ships in the key waterway.

The Islamic Republic maintains that no vessel can pass through the Strait of Hormuz, which accounts for the shipment of some 20% of global oil, without its permission. Iran retaliated with a missile and drone barrage against US military facilities in the Gulf, while also firing at American warships, including an aircraft carrier.

In a televised interview on Sunday, Rezaei, who is the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Tehran plans to place even wider curbs on shipping in the region. The restricted area “will begin from the US Navy’s blockade line and extend into parts of the Persian Gulf,” stretching toward several key ports, he said.

“Any vessel entering this new zone will be placed on a sanctions list,” which will have consequences for its insurance and future passage through the strait, the security official explained. Rezaei insisted that the Strait of Hormuz remains “completely closed and under the control of the armed forces” of Iran, describing US President Donald Trump’s claims that it’s open as a “big lie.

” More than a hundred vessels passed through the waterway on a daily basis before the US-Israeli attack on Iran in late February, but now the number has reduced to only seven or eight per day, the official said. Those vessels are transporting essential goods for the Islamic Republic, he added.

“The Americans are trying to smuggle five to six vessels through at great expense, but these ships are usually struck,” Rezaei stressed. Iran isn’t sinking those ships because they are carrying oil and doing so would harm the environment, he stressed.

On Saturday, the US attacked three Iranian commercial vessels as part of its blockade of Tehran’s ports, with one of them, the crude oil tanker M/T Kylo, sinking in the Gulf of Oman the next day. US Secretary of War Defense Pete Hegseth warned in a post on X that Washington could target the Iranian oil tanker fleet in the Middle East or in the Indo-Pacific region.

“It’s simple: if Iran shoots at US ships, we will destroy (and sink) their oil tankers,” he wrote. Iranian Parliament speaker and top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned on Sunday that further aggressive actions by the US will be met with “faster, heavier and more painful” retaliation by Tehran.

“The Americans have surely understood that the era of proportionate responses has come to an end and our recent strikes against aggressor bases was only a start,” Ghalibaf said.

Yemen’s Houthi movement accused Saudi Arabia of conducting airstrikes and missile attacks on multiple provinces, claims corroborated by unnamed government military sources but not officially acknowledged by Riyadh. These reported strikes coincide with intense fighting near the Red Sea coast that has resulted in over 300 casualties and widespread displacement, as Houthi forces advance toward the Bab al-Mandab strait.

Iranian state television has broadcast footage it said showed ballistic missile attacks on a US aircraft carrier and destroyer, as Iran and the United States exchanged strikes on military and oil-related targets in and around the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said the two US warships were targeted with Iranian-made Qasem Basir ballistic missiles, alleging that the vessels had participated in a naval blockade of Iranian shipping.

The IRGC claimed the missiles damaged both vessels and forced them to withdraw from the area. The footage broadcast by Iranian state media was presented as documenting the attacks, but the claims of direct hits and damage could not be independently verified.

The Iranian military described the strikes as retaliation for US attacks on three Iranian oil tankers. The US military said on Saturday that it had targeted three tankers linked to the Revolutionary Guard, permanently disabling two and destroying a third.

It described the vessels as part of a network generating funds for the IRGC and Iran-aligned groups in the region. READ: Iran shifting military doctrine toward preemptive attack: Army spokesman According to the US military, one tanker was targeted off Kharg Island, the site of Iran’s largest oil export terminal, another near the Strait of Hormuz, and the third in the Gulf of Oman.

The Revolutionary Guard confirmed that three Iranian tankers had been attacked and subsequently announced retaliatory operations against US naval assets. In a separate statement on Sunday, the IRGC said its naval forces had targeted a US unmanned surface vessel that it claimed was attempting to enter a restricted area of the Strait of Hormuz.

The outcome of that attack was not independently confirmed. Iranian authorities also said their forces had targeted three oil tankers that were allegedly transiting the strait without authorization, as well as several US warships in other locations.

The exchanges come amid heightened military tensions between Washington and Tehran and stalled diplomatic efforts to end the conflict. The United States has also intensified economic pressure on Iran through sanctions and restrictions targeting Iranian oil revenues and entities linked to the Revolutionary Guard.

Iran plans new 'exclusion zone' near Strait of Hormuz The new head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council says the country plans to announce an "exclusion zone" outside the Strait of Hormuz aimed at vessels it believes are attempting to transit the waterway.

Mohsen Rezaei's comments to Iran's state broadcaster came with few details, a day after the US struck three Iranian oil tankers in response to what it said was Iran launching ballistic missiles at US warships. The new zone should be announced in the coming days and weeks and "will begin from the line of the US naval blockade, extend toward the Strait of Hormuz, and from this side continue into the Persian Gulf," Rezaei said.

"Any ship that enters this area with the intention of passing through the Strait of Hormuz and is identified will be placed on our sanctions list." It is not clear where Iran defines the location of the weeks-long US blockade, which is aimed at Iranian ports and keeping Iran from shipping out its oil.

The US military has said more than 20 warships are supporting the blockade, which as of Sunday had redirected 92 commercial ships and disabled three. The US has been introducing new measures to increase the economic pain on Iran after negotiations collapsed and no end to the intermittent fighting appears in sight.

Meanwhile, Iran continues to attack some ships trying to transit the strait, which has become an important source of leverage in the war that began February 28 with US and Israeli strikes. Iran earlier on Sunday said it struck an unmanned US vessel trying to enter the Strait of Hormuz, a claim that the US military dismissed as a "total lie".

The strait is crucial to global oil and natural gas shipments and was seen as an international waterway before the war began. On Sunday, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said that on average, nine million barrels of oil a day are getting through the strait, which should help to relieve pressure on energy prices.

His estimate appeared to exceed average flows over the past 28 days through the strait, according to TankerTrackers.com and other sources. Wright told CNN that with oil also flowing through pipelines in the region, "we're probably two-thirds or more of pre-conflict flows".

But those flows depend on the presence of the US navy to help escort tankers and provide some protection against possible Iranian attack. Wright said he expected that other countries would eventually support the US navy's efforts. Meanwhile, Rezaei in his interview with state TV insisted that "every day we are selling one million, one and a half million (barrels), as if Iran's oil production and trade are continuing as usual".