'Your ships will be sunk by our first missiles': Iran warns US over Strait of Hormuz

The military adviser to Iran's supreme leader warned on Wednesday that Iran would destroy American naval vessels if the United States attempted to enforce control over the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most strategically critical shipping lane that has been at the centre of the ongoing US-Iran conflict.

Mohsen Rezaei, a former commander-in-chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guards who was appointed military adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's successor last month, made the stark threat in an interview with Iranian state television. "Mr Trump wants to become the police of the Strait of Hormuz. Is this really your job? Is this the job of a powerful army like the US?" Rezaei said, dressed in military uniform. "These ships of yours will be sunk by our first missiles."

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The warning comes as a fragile two-week ceasefire holds between the United States and Iran, following over six weeks of war that began when the US and Israel launched air strikes against Iran in late February and killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The US military last week announced it would begin a blockade of all Iranian ports after talks between Washington and Tehran collapsed in Pakistan, a move Iran called illegal and said "amounts to piracy."

The Strait of Hormuz, just 34 kilometres wide at its narrowest point, serves as the transit route for roughly 20 percent of global seaborne oil trade and is a critical artery for Saudi, Emirati, Iraqi, and Qatari energy exports. Iran has largely blocked shipping through it since the conflict broke out, while allowing some vessels from friendly countries such as China to pass.

Rezaei, long regarded as a hardliner even within the IRGC's own ranks, escalated his remarks further, saying he would welcome a US ground invasion of Iran. "We would take thousands of hostages and then for each hostage we would get a billion dollars," he said. He also said he was personally opposed to any extension of the ongoing ceasefire, without elaborating.

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Earlier this week, the USS Michael Murphy and USS Frank E. Petersen transited the strait with their automatic identification systems switched on, a deliberate signal of US intent to challenge Iran's control over the waterway.

The first and only round of US-Iran negotiations since the war began were led on Iran's side by parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf — himself a former IRGC aerospace forces commander, in Islamabad. Those talks collapsed on Sunday, with Ghalibaf telling Trump on his return to Iran: "If you fight, we will fight."