US strikes Iranian fast boats as Iran attacks UAE oil facility. President Donald Trump says the US has struck seven Iranian “fast boats” in the Strait of Hormuz.

As Washington seeks to guide stranded ships out of the Gulf through the largely closed waterway.

US strikes Iranian fast boats as Iran attacks UAE oil facility

President Donald Trump says the US has struck seven Iranian “fast boats” in the Strait of Hormuz, as Washington seeks to guide stranded ships out of the Gulf through the largely closed waterway.

The UAE and South Korea both reported strikes on ships in the vital channel on Monday. The UAE also said a fire broke out at the oil port of Fujairah after an Iranian attack.

Shipping company Maersk told the BBC that one of its US-flagged vessels had successfully exited the strait with US military protection – under what Trump has called “Project Freedom”.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that events in the strait “make clear that there’s no military solution to a political crisis”.

He added: “Project Freedom is Project Deadlock.”Maersk said the transit of one of its commercial vessels was “completed without incident, and all crew members are safe and unharmed”.

The Strait of Hormuz has remained largely blocked since the US and Israel launched air strikes on Iran in February. Tehran responded by blocking the crucial waterway through which 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas usually passes.

In early April, the US and Iran announced a ceasefire under which Iran ended its drone and missile strikes on Gulf countries including the UAE, but few vessels have been able to transit the strait since then. The US also imposed its own blockade on Iranian ports.Trump said: “We’ve shot down seven small boats or, as they like to call them, ‘fast’ boats. It’s all they have left.” The US military said it had used helicopters to attack the boats.

Iranian state media later disputed Trump’s announcement that the US had struck the speed boats. Citing a military source, the Tasnim news agency reported that two small cargo vessels had been hit instead, killing five civilians.

The US earlier said navy destroyers and US-flagged merchant ships sailed through the strait on Monday. Iran called the claims “entirely false”, with its military saying it fired warning shots at a US warship. The US military denied this.

Later on Monday, shipping firm Maersk said its US-flagged vessel the Alliance Fairfax, which had been stranded in the Gulf since the US and Israeli attack on Iran at the end of February, had exited the Strait of Hormuz.

The firm said it had been contacted by the US and “offered the opportunity for the vessel to exit the Gulf under US military protection”.

In a statement, the firm added: “The vessel subsequently exited the Persian Gulf accompanied by US military assets.”