Iran War Live Updates: Iran’s Military Says It Has Reimposed ‘Strict Control’ of Strait of Hormuz
Iran reasserted control over the Strait of Hormuz, claiming the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports necessitated the move. This announcement contradicted earlier statements from Iranian officials and President Trump, who claimed the strait was open. The situation remains unclear, impacting global energy supplies and causing confusion for shipping companies.
The military said it would keep the vital waterway under its control until the U.S. ended its blockade of Iranian ports. The statement added to the uncertainty over access to the strait.
Pinned
Iran said Saturday that it had reasserted control over the Strait of Hormuz because the United States was maintaining a naval blockade, just hours after Iranian officials and President Trump had said that the critical waterway was open, raising hopes for an end to the six-week war.
The announcement added more confusion to the status of transit through the strait, where Iran had choked global energy supplies by menacing nearby ships during the war with the United States and Israel. Iran’s military, in a statement carried by government media, said it was now “under strict control” unless the United States ended its own blockade of Iranian ports.
Sarah Chaayto
Reporting from Sidon, LebanonPeople continued to travel back to southern Lebanon in large numbers on Saturday, more than a day after a cease-fire paused Israeli airstrikes against Hezbollah and enabled residents to take stock of the scale of destruction of their homes and villages. Traffic headed south near Sidon, a city south of Beirut, was heavy.
In Iran, six airports have reopened, and airlines are preparing to operate domestic and international flights, an executive from Iran’s aviation sector told an Iranian news outlet on Saturday. Iran shut down its airspace after U.S.-Israeli airstrikes began on Feb. 28.
The reopened airports include the two main ones in the capital, Tehran, and airports in the cities of Mashhad, Birjand, Gorgan and Zahedan, all in the east of the country, said Maqsoud Asadi-Samani, secretary of the Association of Iranian Airlines, in comments reported by the semiofficial Tasnim news agency.
Earlier on Saturday, the country’s Civil Aviation Organization said that part of Iran’s airspace and some of its airports had reopened.
Shipping companies are facing confusion and uncertainty about the status of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow passageway through which a significant share of the world’s energy flows, as they assess mixed messages from officials in Iran and the United States.
But even if the strait opens fully — on Saturday, Iran’s military said it would reimpose “strict” control over traffic — it will take weeks for substantial amounts of Persian Gulf oil and gas to reach buyers around the world.
Iran’s military said on Saturday that “control of the Strait of Hormuz has returned to its previous state” and that the waterway was “now under strict management and control of the armed forces.” The military statement, published by Iranian state television, said that the strait would remain “under strict control” unless the United States restored “full freedom of navigation for vessels traveling from Iran to destinations and from destinations to Iran,” referring to the American blockade of Iranian ports.
The statement added more confusion to the state of navigation through the strait, a day after President Trump and Iran’s foreign minister said it was open again.
Part of Iran’s airspace and some of its airports reopened on Saturday morning, the country’s Civil Aviation Organization announced. Iran had shut down its airspace after U.S.-Israeli airstrikes began on Feb. 28.
“Accordingly, air routes in the eastern sector of the country’s airspace are open for international flights transiting through Iran,” the organization said in a statement published by the state news agency. Flight operations would “gradually resume,” it added.
Top officials from Pakistan, a key mediator between the United States and Iran, went on several high-profile trips this week. Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, the army chief, concluded a three-day visit to Iran, the Pakistani military said on Saturday. Munir’s meetings included talks with Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who are on the Iranian negotiating team.
Separately, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar were flying back to Pakistan after visiting Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey for talks, Dar said on social media on Saturday.
Iranian warships sunk by U.S. and Israeli attacks litter naval harbors along the Persian Gulf coast, but what is sometimes called a “mosquito fleet” lurks in the shadows.
It is a flotilla of small, fast, agile boats designed to harass shipping, and it forms the heart of the naval forces deployed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a force separate from Iran’s regular navy.
Just two days after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the United States would not extend a sanctions exemption on the sale of some Russian oil, the Treasury Department did just that on Friday, issuing one for about a month.
The renewed license will be in effect until May 16 and supersede the sanctions waiver on Russia that expired on April 11.
President Trump’s announcement that Iran had agreed to “completely open” the Strait of Hormuz bolstered hopes that the two governments were keeping alive a cease-fire agreement reached last week and nearing a framework for further negotiations to reach a lasting peace deal.
The announcement came a day after Mr. Trump said U.S. and Iranian teams would probably meet this weekend for a second round of talks, as Iranian officials said the sides were nearing agreement on a document that sets a formal framework and a 60-day clock for negotiations.
Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, said on Friday that the blockade against ships entering or exiting Iranian ports would remain until President Trump suspended it.
“As the president announced earlier today, U.S. forces in the Middle East continue to fully enforce the maritime blockade against ships entering or exiting Iranian ports in coastal areas,” Admiral Cooper said in a conference call with reporters. “It will remain in effect until further notice.”
A 10-day cease-fire that Lebanon and Israel agreed to appeared to be holding on Friday, but absent from the agreement was one of the two warring parties: Hezbollah, the Iran-backed, Lebanese militia that the Israeli military had been fighting.
In statements after the U.S.-brokered truce was announced, Hezbollah made vague reference to the cease-fire but did not commit to adhering to it. The group set off the latest round of fighting last month by attacking Israel in solidarity with Iran, soon after the start of the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign there. Israel responded to Hezbollah’s attacks by launching airstrikes across Lebanon and widening a ground invasion of the country’s south.
A 60-year-old woman did not know what she would find when she returned to her home in Srifa, a village in southern Lebanon.
The woman, Mona Nazal, had fled north in early March, when the war between Israel and Hezbollah reignited. She had not been back since. But as a temporary cease-fire went into effect on Friday morning, she rushed to her car and drove for six hours until she reached the village entrance.“
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