Iran’s armed forces said they would attempt to expand their influence over sea lanes beyond the Strait of Hormuz if the U.S. military continued to block Iranian shipping.
Here’s the latest.
- Iran on Wednesday threatened further retaliation over an American naval blockade of its ports in the critical Strait of Hormuz as the U.S. military said that it had “completely halted” trade in and out of Iran by sea.
- More than 10,000 soldiers, as well as dozens of planes and warships, are enforcing the blockade, the U.S. military said. In response, the Iranian military said on state media that it could expand its grip over critical shipping routes beyond the strait if the U.S. blockade continued.
- “Iran’s powerful armed forces will not allow any exports or imports to continue in the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman and the Red Sea,” said Maj. Gen. Ali Abdollahi, who leads the military joint command that oversees Iran’s army and Revolutionary Guards.
- Mediators are rushing to shore up a two-week cease-fire in the war between the United States, Israel and Iran that expires April 21. But the future of the talks is unclear after a meeting between Vice President JD Vance and senior Iranian leaders over the weekend in Pakistan ended without a breakthrough.
- President Trump, in an interview with Fox Business, again deemed the conflict “close to over” — a claim he has made repeatedly — while also suggesting that U.S. attacks could continue as long as needed to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
- Iran has not fully relaxed its control over the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf conduit for oil and gas, which Mr. Trump said was a precondition for the current truce. Iran began blockading the Strait of Hormuz during the war, rattling the world economy and sending energy prices soaring.
- The major points of contention in the war are the strait, Iran’s nuclear program and Israel’s military campaign in Lebanon against Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group.
- The United States announced on Tuesday that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to “launch direct negotiations” to end fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The announcement followed a rare face-to-face meeting in Washington between the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors.
- Hezbollah condemned the Lebanese government for negotiating with Israel, however, and it was unclear whether any Israel-Lebanon agreement would lead to an end in the fighting. Hezbollah has long been Lebanon’s dominant military and political force, defying attempts by the official Lebanese government to assert control.
Here’s what else we’re covering:
Future talks?: Iran has continued to exchange messages with the United States through Pakistan since the initial talks ended, but there is no timetable for setting another round of negotiations, Esmaeil Baghaei, the spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, said on Wednesday. Pakistan’s army chief, Syed Asim Munir, arrived in Tehran on Wednesday, state media reported, for what Mr. Baghaei earlier said would be a “comprehensive discussion about the perspectives of both sides.”
Lebanon: The talks between Israel and Lebanon did not lead to an immediate cease-fire. Israeli forces bombarded towns in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, according to Lebanese state media. Several people were killed in a strike in the coastal town of Ansariya, Lebanon’s official National News Agency said.
Iranian rescues: Emergency teams have rescued more than 7,200 Iranians from rubble after U.S. and Israeli bombings throughout the war, the president of Iran’s Red Crescent society, Pir Hossein Kolivand, said. The Iranian authorities have released little comprehensive information about the dead and wounded in the country, more than a month in the war.
Death tolls: The Human Rights Activists News Agency said at least 1,701 civilians, including 254 children, had been killed in Iran as of last Wednesday. Lebanon’s health ministry said on Tuesday that 2,124 people had been killed in the latest fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. In attacks attributed to Iran, at least 32 people have been killed in Persian Gulf nations. At least 22 people had been killed in Israel as of Sunday, as well as 12 Israeli soldiers fighting in Lebanon. The American death toll stands at 13 service members.Show less
April 15, 2026, 11:31 a.m. ET9 minutes ago
Eric Schmitt, Reporting from Washington
U.S. Central Command said on Wednesday that no commercial vessels entering or exiting Iranian ports had evaded a U.S. naval blockade in its first 48 hours. The command said in a statement that nine Iran-linked ships that transited the Strait of Hormuz during that period had subsequently complied with radioed orders from Navy ships positioned in the Gulf of Oman, outside the strait, to turn around and return to an Iranian port. That is up from six during the first 24 hours. More than a dozen U.S. Navy ships are assigned to the mission.
April 15, 2026, 11:26 a.m. ET14 minutes ago
Erika Solomon and Hwaida Saad
Lebanon’s ministry of public health accused Israel of attacking three rescue teams that attempted to reach the site of an Israeli air strike in the southern village of Mayfadoun on Wednesday, killing three medics and injuring six others. Israel first struck a team from Lebanon’s Health Association, the ministry said in a statement, leaving one paramedic dead while another is still missing. A second Health Association ambulance then headed to the site, it said, and was also struck. A third attempt, conducted by Al-Risala Islamic Scouts rescuers, was also targeted, it said, killing two more paramedics. The ministry called the attacks a “blatant violation” of international law. Israel has previously accused Hezbollah of using ambulances.
April 15, 2026, 11:23 a.m. ET18 minutes ago
Jenny Gross, Reporting from London
Several Iran-linked ships have slowed or stopped as the U.S. blockade is ‘fully implemented.’
A vessel in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday. Traffic is still at a fraction from its usual levels.Credit...ReutersThe U.S. Navy blockade of Iranian ports appeared to be working on Wednesday, with no Iran-linked ships visibly able to leave the region since the blockade took effect 48 hours earlier, according to U.S. authorities and vessel-tracking firms.
Several vessels appear to have stopped or slowed after exiting the Strait of Hormuz into the Gulf of Oman, “which may reflect the deterrent effect of the blockade,” Kpler, a maritime data company, noted in a report on Wednesday.
Still, the data is likely incomplete because of how difficult it is track the location of ships in waters in and around the strait. While most commercial vessels are required to travel with transponders that transmit a ship’s name, location and other identifying information, many vessels in the Persian Gulf are hiding their location or falsifying other information, making real-time ship tracking difficult, according to experts.
Adm. Brad Cooper, the U.S. Central Command leader, said late Tuesday that the blockade had been “fully implemented” and had “completely stopped” commercial traffic to and from Iranian ports. More than a dozen Navy warships are patrolling waters east of the strait, enforcing a blockade on all vessels from all nations entering or leaving coastal areas or ports in Iran.
Central Command on Wednesday said that nine vessels had complied with directions to turn around and re-enter an Iranian port or coastal area, though it did not give details. Kpler, which also uses satellite data to track ships when their location looks like it may have been falsified, said that two ships with links to Iran and subject to U.S. sanctions appeared to have made U-turns. Eight additional ships that have historically carried Iranian cargo were stationary in the Gulf of Oman or were slowing down, according to Ana Subasic, an analyst at Kpler.
One of the ships that reversed course, the Rich Starry, a Chinese tanker under U.S. sanctions, was traveling eastward through the strait on Tuesday before turning around. The other ship, the Ostria, was heading toward an Iranian port and was turned back before it could pick up cargo, most likely of Iranian refined products.
Ms. Subasic said there had been no loadings at Iranian ports since the start of the blockade on Monday. “What you’re seeing with the U.S. blockade is they’re trying to stop Iranians from lifting their cargoes, but at the same time getting out as many vessels as they can on the U.S. side.”
President Trump, in announcing the blockade, said that the Navy would encourage ships not linked to Iran to transit the strait. More than a dozen ships without links to Iran moved through the strait on Monday and Tuesday, according to Central Command and tracking firms like Kpler, staying close to the Omani coast and keeping the most distance from possible sea mines in the middle of the waterway.
Traffic around the strait remains at a fraction of its usual levels, and the effects have rippled through the global economy. Since the blockade came into effect, traffic has slowed further, with shipping companies unwilling to risk the crossing.
Nils Haupt, a spokesman for the German shipping company Hapag-Lloyd, which has six vessels and 150 seafarers stranded in the Persian Gulf, said that the situation was still too uncertain to make plans for the company’s ships to exit the Gulf.
He said the company was concerned about the risk of sea mines. Hapag-Lloyd was also still waiting for assurances that its ships would not be targeted by Iran and for answers from U.S. authorities on the order in which stranded ships were supposed to exit the strait.
“We would need security guarantees for the crew, the vessel and the cargo transported,” he said in an email on Wednesday.
April 15, 2026, 10:51 a.m. ET 49 minutes ago
Erika Solomon and Elian Peltier
After a first round of talks hosted in Islamabad over the weekend, Pakistan’s hybrid diplomacy is in full swing again.
The country’s army chief, Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, has been received in Tehran by Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, photographs posted on Wednesday afternoon by Iranian state media showed. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman earlier said they anticipated a “comprehensive discussion about the perspectives of both sides.” Meanwhile, Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, arrived in Saudi Arabia earlier today. Mr. Sharif is also expected to visit Turkey and Qatar within the next few days.
President Trump has said a second round of talks in Islamabad could happen in the coming days.
April 15, 2026, 9:58 a.m. ET2 hours ago
John Yoon
Here’s how the U.S. blockade of Iranian shipping is taking shape
A cargo ship off the coast of Ras al-Khaimah, United Arab Emirates, on Monday.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe U.S. military says that its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which began on Monday, applies to all Iranian ports and coastal areas in the waterway. Its intention is to suppress Iranian shipping traffic while leaving the strait, a crucial waterway for global shipping, open to other vessels.
Late Tuesday, Adm. Brad Cooper, the Central Command leader, said that the blockade was “fully implemented” and that Iran’s sea trade had been “completely halted.”
The blockade allows vessels to transit the Strait of Hormuz as long as they are not heading to or from ports in Iran, the U.S. military said. Its aim is to stop all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports along the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, the military said.
This means that vessels moving through the strait from elsewhere are not breaching the blockade, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank. More than a dozen ships without links to Iran moved through the strait on Monday and Tuesday, according to Kpler, a maritime tracking company.
The blockade does not have a defined geographical boundary, experts said. “Think of it less as a physical line but more as an intent to apply pressure,” said Jennifer Parker, a former naval officer now at the University of Western Australia’s Defense and Security Institute.
The U.S. military can enforce the blockade from a significant distance, Ms. Parker said. The U.S. forces do not have to be close to the vessels to make them turn around. In fact, she said they were unlikely to be in the Persian Gulf at all, where they could be at greater risk of Iranian attacks.
More than 12 American military vessels were stationed in international waters in the Gulf of Oman, beyond the strait, a U.S. official said on Tuesday. The U.S. military said on social media that an amphibious assault ship that is part of the blockade mission was sailing in the Arabian Sea, farther away still.
The military is likely monitoring the region from there using radars, patrol aircraft and drones, Ms. Parker said. U.S. forces could use radio transmissions to tell any ships leaving or approaching Iranian ports to turn around.
On Tuesday, the U.S. military said that six merchant vessels had complied with its instructions to turn around and re-enter an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman. It did not identify the ships or the ports.
If a vessel does not comply, the U.S. military could intercept it, Ms. Parker said. During an interception, U.S. forces could board the ship and seize it. More than 10,000 U.S. sailors, marines and airmen, over 100 fighter jets and surveillance aircraft and more than a dozen warships are carrying out the blockade mission, the U.S. military said. It has not said whether it has intercepted a vessel as part of this mission.
Jenny Gross contributed reporting.
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