The Pentagon is zeroing in on mine-laying vessels that are helping Iran keep a stranglehold over the Strait of Hormuz, military leaders said Thursday, as markets continue to feel pain from the waterway’s closure
The Pentagon is zeroing in on mine-laying vessels that are helping Iran keep a stranglehold over the Strait of Hormuz, military leaders said Thursday, as markets continue to feel pain from the waterway’s closure
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon that the U.S. had destroyed 44 mine-laying Iranian vessels to combat Tehran’s capability to mine the strait and pose a threat to commercial vessels that have largely avoided sailing there.
Air Force A-10 Warthog attack jets are now “in the fight,” Caine said, hunting fast boats Iran could deploy to mine the strait.
The A-10 has been in service since the 1970s and is the Air Force’s workhorse for providing close air support, able to attack enemy forces within close proximity of U.S. troops. Its signature weapon is a 30mm chain gun, a massive automatic weapon able to fire up to 4,200 rounds per minute, according to General Dynamics, the weapon’s manufacturer.
Iran live updates
President Donald Trump has said that if needed U.S. Navy warships could escort commercial shipping through the strait in convoy operations to facilitate commercial shipping that, in ordinary times, transits some 20% of the world’s oil trade. But military experts have told ABC News that the Navy cannot begin escort duty until the mine threat is addressed.
Pentagon seeking $200B more for Iran war, official says
Trump said Thursday, while seated with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in the Oval Office, that the U.S. military could manage the challenge without its European allies. Caine has said he would review a “range of options to set the military conditions” with the president if ordered to escort commercial vessels.
Two of the Navy’s three warships with counter-mine capabilities that are based in the Middle East, usually stationed in Bahrain, were in a different theater for scheduled maintenance on Wednesday, a Navy spokesperson told ABC News.
The USS Tulsa and the USS Santa Barbara, both outfitted with counter-mine capabilities and autonomous systems, are in Singapore for “scheduled maintenance and logistics,” Navy Cmdr. Joe Hontz said in a statement to ABC News.
The War Zone first reported that the vessels had left Central Command. The Pentagon has not disclosed the location of the third, the USS Canberra. Central Command has publicized military action aimed at the Iranian mine threat — including strikes this week with bunker-busting bombs along the Iranian coastline, from where Iran could potentially launch anti-ship missiles at vessels transiting the strait.
But mines are low-cost and easily deployed, even by small boats — an “asymmetric weapon,” said retired US Adm. James Foggo, who commanded the U.S. Navy’s Sixth Fleet.
“Some might say [mines are] a poor man’s weapon,” Foggo said. “So if you don’t have anything else, you lay mine. … [and] any vessel is a minelayer. So you could have a [boat] that looks like a fishing vessel running around and rolling mines off the stern in the dark.”
Translate This Article
