US Navy on heightened state of readiness as merchant ships are warned of possible Iranian attacks in the Middle East
- Trump administration says Iran has issued ‘clear indications’ of threats to US interests
US commercial ships including oil tankers sailing through key Middle East waterways could be targeted by Iran in one of the threats to US interests posed by Tehran, the US Maritime Administration has advised.
The Pentagon said this week that a number of B-52 bombers would be part of additional forces newly deployed to the Middle East to counter what the Trump administration calls “clear indications” of threats from Iran to US forces there. The Islamic Republic has dismissed the US contention of a threat as “fake intelligence”.
Vice-Admiral Jim Malloy, commander of the US Navy’s Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet, said on Thursday that its forces were on a heightened state of readiness, although the US military was not seeking or preparing for war with Iran.
In the advisory posted on Thursday, the US Maritime Administration (MARAD), a US Department of Transportation agency, said that since early May there had been an increased possibility of Iran or its regional proxies taking action against US and partner interests.
These included, MARAD said, oil production infrastructure, after Tehran threatened to close the vital Strait of Hormuz chokepoint through which about one third of the world’s seaborne crude exports are transported.