US 'Not Ready' To Escort Oil Tankers, Says Energy Chief
US President Donald Trump has said the US Navy may be brought in to help escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz, but US Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC in an interview on March 12 that it may take several more weeks before that is possible.
"It'll happen relatively soon, but it can't happen now,” Wright said in the March 12 interview.
"We're simply not ready. All of our military assets right now are focused on destroying Iran's offensive capabilities and the manufacturing industry that supplies their offensive capabilities."
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Iran's Navy Is Largely Gone. The Threat To The Strait Of Hormuz Is Not.
The United States and Israel have largely destroyed Iran's conventional naval fleet in a massive bombing campaign since February 28.
But Tehran's threat to the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most important shipping routes, has not diminished. Iran has effectively closed the narrow waterway, through which 20 percent of the world's oil supplies flow, by using asymmetric warfare tactics.
Besides Iran's conventional navy, the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the elite branch of the country's armed forces, has its own naval units that continue to hound and attack shipping in the Persian Gulf.
"While I think the Iranian Navy is largely combat ineffective at this point, the IRGC navy remains able to harass shipping," said Sascha Bruchmann, a military and security affairs analyst at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.
"That maintains a specter of danger that most civilian shipping lines and insurers will find unacceptable," Bruchmann added.
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Iran To Keep Strait Of Hormuz Closed, Khamenei Says
Iran must continue to keep a key Gulf shipping lane closed, Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said in his first public comments since being named to succeed his late father, hours after several vessels were targeted in strikes as Tehran looks to choke off oil supplies from leaving the Middle East.
In the statement, which was read out on Iranian state TV by a female presenter on March 12, Khamenei said Iran will continue to seek to strike targets where "the enemy has little experience and will be severely vulnerable."
Iran has been launching air and water strikes at targets across the Middle East in retaliation for US and Israeli attacks that started on February 28, the day his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in one such bombardment.
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Israeli President Calls Iran 'Empire Of Evil' That Must be 'Hit Hard'
RAMLA, ISRAEL -- Israeli President Isaac Herzog has told RFE/RL that Iran is an "empire of evil" that must be "hit hard" in order to preserve his country's way of life.
Herzog was speaking during a visit to a kindergarten that was damaged by an Iranian ballistic missile in Ramla, just outside Tel Aviv, three days previously.
"Ramla is a historic city. Even Bonaparte, Napoleon, slept in this city," he said.
"It's Jews and Arabs living together, Muslims, Christians, and Jews dwelling together in the most beautiful place. And in order to continue living together, when the empire of evil from Tehran tries to undermine any form of peace and any process of normalization, we have to hit hard at them. We have to remove their capabilities so that there will be a new future for the Middle East," he added.
Asked by RFE/RL if the war could end without achieving regime change in Iran, a war aim that has often been stated by Israeli officials, Herzog waved his hand and walked away with security guards.
Iran's New Supreme Leader Makes First Statement
In remarks read out by a female presenter from a statement on Iranian state TV on March 12, Iran's newly appointed supreme leader -- Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, son of his predecessor -- makes his first address. The younger Khamenei, however, has not been seen in public since before the US-Israeli attacks that killed his father and other Iranian officials on February 28.
Among other comments, he said:
On the Strait of Hormuz: "The lever of closing the Strait of Hormuz must certainly continue to be used. Studies have been conducted regarding the opening of other fronts where the enemy has little experience and will be severely vulnerable; their activation will take place should the state of war persist and in accordance with strategic considerations."
On the death of late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and others in Iran: "I give this assurance to all: We will not relinquish revenge for the blood of your martyrs. The retribution we have in mind is not limited to the martyrdom of the great leader of the revolution alone -- every member of the nation martyred by the enemy constitutes an independent matter for the file of retribution."
"The crime the enemy deliberately committed against the Shajara Tayyiba school in Minab and certain similar cases holds particular standing in this reckoning."
Seeking reparations: "We will extract reparations from the enemy, and if they refuse, we will seize from their assets to the extent we deem appropriate -- and if that too is not possible, we will destroy an equivalent amount of their assets."
Congress To Be Briefed As Probe Examines Iran School Strike, Sources Tell RFE/RL
WASHINGTON -- A final assessment by US military officials of events surrounding a deadly missile strike on an Iranian girls' school will be shared with Congress in the coming days, sources told RFE/RL amid growing reports that the attack was likely launched by the United States.
Evidence is building that the strike may be the result of US forces relying on outdated intelligence, according to two US officials familiar with the matter, though they cautioned that the assessment remains preliminary.
The officials, who spoke to RFE/RL on March 11 on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said they could not confirm or deny reports -- which have appeared in The New York Times and Reuters, among other media outlets -- on the faulty intelligence, but they added that early findings point in a similar direction.
The February 28 missile attack hit the Shajarah Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in the southern Iranian city of Minab, in the Hormozgan province, killing at least 175 people, including 168 children, according to local officials.
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Navy Not Yet In A Position To Escort Ships In Gulf, US Energy Secretary Says
The US Navy is not ready to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, though it may be in a position to do so by the end of the month, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC in an interview.
“It’ll happen relatively soon but it can’t happen now,” Wright said in the March 12 interview. “We’re simply not ready. All of our military assets right now are focused on destroying Iran’s offensive capabilities and the manufacturing industry that supplies their offensive capabilities.”
He said the navy is likely to be in a position to escort tankers by the end of March.
“I’ll be over at the Pentagon later today -- that is what the military is working on,” he added.
Israel Says It Struck Iranian Nuclear Site
The Israeli military says it has hit a nuclear facility near Tehran known as Taleqan.
In a statement on March 12, the Israeli military said it had "struck" the Taleqan compound, saying Tehran had used it “to develop advanced explosives and conduct sensitive experiments as part of the covert 'AMAD' project," referring to a suspected Iranian nuclear weapons research program that is thought to have operated in the early 2000s.
The site includes Taleqan-2, a building at the Parchin military complex southeast of Tehran.
It had previously been reported that Taleqan-2 was targeted during the 12-day US-Israeli war against Iran in June.
About a month ago, the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security published satellite images saying new construction activity had taken place at the site.
According to the institute, Iran had reinforced the facility’s concrete layers and then covered large sections of the Taleqan-2 site with earth.
Officials and media in the Islamic republic have not yet commented on Israel’s claim.
Up To 3.2 Million Displaced In Iran Amid Conflict, Says UN Refugee Agency
The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) says that up to 3.2 million Iranians have been temporarily displaced within Iran as the conflict intensifies.
"Between 600,000 and 1 million Iranian households are now temporarily displaced inside Iran as a result of the ongoing conflict, according to preliminary assessments, representing up to 3.2 million people," the UNHCR statement said on March 12.
The statement added that most of these individuals are reportedly fleeing Tehran and other major urban areas for rural areas in the north of the country to seek safety.
"This figure is likely to continue rising as hostilities persist, marking a worrying escalation in humanitarian needs," the agency warned.
Georgian Sailors Survive Iranian Attack On Ship Off Iraqi Coast
All 23 Georgian crew members aboard a Malta-flagged tanker struck by Iran off the Iraqi coast have been rescued, a relative of one of the sailors told RFE/RL's Georgian Service.
Two oil tankers sailing in Iraqi territorial waters were struck in the Persian Gulf early on March 12, with sailors describing a coordinated attack involving drones and explosive devices.
Iranian state television confirmed that Iranian forces had attacked the tankers, reporting that at least one vessel was hit by an Iranian unmanned vehicle from the water.
One of the targeted ships was the Malta-flagged tanker ZEFYROS, which included the 23 Georgian sailors, while the second vessel that was hit, SAFESEA VISHNU, was sailing under a Marshall Islands flag and was chartered by an Iraqi company, according to the Iraqi State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO).
“I spoke with him around midnight and everything was fine,” Nincho Surmanidze, the wife of Georgian sailor Irakli Jashi, told RFE/RL. “Then he called me again around 2:30 a.m. and quickly said: ‘We’re all okay, everyone survived.’”
Later in the morning, she said, her husband told her that a drone had struck their tanker, triggering a fire that heavily damaged the vessel.
“He said everything burned,” Surmanidze added.
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