The United States and its allies have ramped up efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, deploying low-flying warplanes to strike Iranian boats and Apache helicopters to intercept drones, US officials said told the Wall Street Journal on Thursday.
Earlier in the day, the top US general, Dan Caine, announced that US A-10 Thunderbolt II jets, commonly known as the Warthog, had entered the war and were on missions along Iran’s southern flank.
The A-10 is “hunting and killing fast-attack watercraft in the Straits of Hormuz,” Gen. Caine said in remarks to the press at the Pentagon. “In addition, AH-64 Apaches have joined the fight on the southern flank, and they continue to work on the southern side. And that includes some of our allies who are using Apaches to handle one-way attack drones.”
The Strait of Hormuz, a waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman on Iran’s southern coast, is vital to the global oil trade and commercial shipping. Iran’s closure of the Strait following the start of the war has pushed oil prices above $100 per barrel.
A US official told the Journal that both A-10s and Apache helicopters had been operating over the last few days to destroy Iran’s fast-attack vessels that have been harassing commercial shipping in the Strait.
The official noted that these aircraft have joined jets in the area that are also capable of striking at these watercraft, but that the addition of the A-10s and the Apaches has intensified the US military effort there.
US CENTCOM footage reveals strikes destroying Iranian naval assets in Strait of Hormuz
In unclassified video footage published by US Central Command on Thursday, US strikes are shown blowing up Iranian naval assets in the Strait.
“US forces are destroying Iranian naval targets that threaten international shipping in and near the Strait of Hormuz,” CENTCOM stated in the X/Twitter post showing the strikes.
The CENTCOM announcement follows one from Tuesday, where it said that it had used multiple 5,000-pound deep penetrator munitions to strike Iranian missile sites on the coast near the Strait.
Later, on Friday, Iranian media claimed that 16 commercial boats in the port of Bandar Lengeh, a city on Iran's southern coast near the Strait, had been set ablaze due to US-Israeli strikes.
"In this incident, which was carried out by a direct attack by American-Israeli fighter jets, at least 16 cargo barges belonging to the citizens of Bandar Lengeh and Bandar Kong were completely burned," Iranian media cited Bandar Lengeh governor Fawad Moradzadeh as saying.
Separately, on Friday, Axios reported that US President Donald Trump’s administration was weighing plans to either seize or blockade Iran’s Kharg Island in an effort to pressure the Islamic Republic to reopen the Strait.
Two sources who spoke to The Jerusalem Post later corroborated the Axios report, noting that the option of occupying the island had been discussed within the administration in recent days.
“Anything is possible, and several options are on the table,” one of the sources said.
Before the war, Kharg Island, which sits in the Persian Gulf to the West of the Strait of Hormuz, processed about 90 percent of Iran’s crude oil exports, much of which goes to China.
Occupying or besieging Kharg Island deprives Iran of one of its primary sources of revenue for its faltering economy. As a result, pressure on Iran via the island is seen as a potential avenue to compel Tehran to open the Strait.
Last week, Trump announced that CENTCOM had struck the island, claiming the US bombing had “obliterated every military target” there.
He said the following day that “one way or another” the US would open the Strait of Hormuz.