https://www.newsmax.com/politi...dkt_nbr=0101024u80kd

US Officials: Iran Laying Mines in Strait of Hormuz

Iran has begun laying naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz, the critical Persian Gulf channel that carries about 20% of the world's oil, according to U.S. officials, raising concerns about global shipping and energy supplies.

U.S. intelligence indicates Iran started deploying the mines Thursday using small boats after the U.S. military destroyed larger Iranian naval vessels capable of quickly laying mines in the narrow waterway, a U.S. official briefed on the intelligence said, according to The New York Times on Friday.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps can deploy hundreds, even thousands, of small boats it has long used to harass larger vessels, including ships operated by the U.S. Navy.

Iran announced shortly after the United States and Israel began attacks on Feb. 28 that it was closing the strait, disrupting global shipping and pushing oil prices sharply higher.

On March 2, a senior Revolutionary Guards official said the strait was closed and claimed Iran would "set those ships ablaze," according to state media.

Several vessels in the area have been struck in recent days, with Iran claiming responsibility for some attacks.

On Tuesday, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi denied that Iran was placing mines in the waterway.

In his first public remarks since the war began, Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, said in a written statement Thursday that "the lever of blocking the Strait of Hormuz must continue to be used."

U.S. officials said the latest mining effort is slower and less efficient than using larger vessels, but Iran appears to be attempting to lay mines faster than U.S. forces can clear them, in hopes of deterring ships from entering the strait.

Iranian activity in the area has become a major focus for U.S. military and intelligence agencies as the Trump administration seeks to keep oil shipments moving through the strategic passage.

President Donald Trump has warned Iran against mining the strait.

On Monday, he wrote in a social media post that the United States would strike Iran "twenty times harder" if Tehran blocked oil shipments.

He added on Tuesday that "If Iran has put out any mines in the Hormuz Strait, and we have no reports of them doing so, we want them removed, IMMEDIATELY!"

The U.S. military said this week it had attacked 16 Iranian vessels believed capable of laying mines.

Naval mines in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s severely damaged commercial shipping.

Today, the Strait of Hormuz remains one of the world's most important energy choke points, with roughly one-fifth of global oil passing through the narrow channel.

Iran has not relied solely on mines to threaten shipping. On Wednesday, projectiles struck three additional ships in the region, intensifying fears that the conflict could disrupt global energy supplies.

All Crew Members of U.S. KC-135 Loss in Iraq Confirmed Deceased

Praying for their families.

quote:

Iran started deploying the mines Thursday using small boats

I get that even though narrow/small on a map it's a big area once out on the water, but don't we have enough resources in the area to detect and stop this? Not like we have to worry about them sneaking up on one of our planes or ships with their Air Force or Navy that they just remanufactured....

Sigmonkey...

Was not trying to cause a dust up or anger you...

I do not pay a lot of attention to or believe a lot of what I see or read on X outside of official accounts, but several of the OSINT type accounts seem to put out information early that more times than often, turns out to be factual or very close with only a few minor details "off", that I felt comfortable posting links to the photos. I think because most of their posts are backed up with photos, publicly available info from named sources, or other easily verifiable sources/data sets. I put them in the same camp as DataRepublican and Elon (post DOGE).

I do understand that I could get "burned" and will be more cognizant of that.

I will apply the "Thou Shall Not Discus A Shooting" rule when it comes to matters like these in the future until someone else broaches the subject and there is official news/press releases issued of the event.

Rest in Peace Airmen.

As I expected, the traitorous left mouthpieces are clamoring to claim the loss of these service members as “waste” in an unjust action by DJT.

Disgusting.


Those crew members died serving their country. Disagree with the the objective all you want but anyone saying these lives were “wasted” are being extremely disrespectful to their service, memory, families, and everyone else who serves or has served.

We all know the risk when we take the oath. That risk is there whether in conflict or not. Many lives are lost in training, exercises, and routine missions.

It’s the nature of the profession. Those using such loss to try and support their political position are devoid of empathy and see these service members as nothing more than pawns to be used to achieve their agenda.


Iran is a tumor to not only the region, but the globe. It needs to be removed.

I was 12 years old in 1980, and had the pleasure of laying next to the boom operator who was refueling F-111's. Civil Air Patrol provided me the awesome opportunity. RIP.

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:
I get that even though narrow/small on a map it's a big area once out on the water, but don't we have enough resources in the area to detect and stop this?...

Short answer: No, we don’t.

First off, we are not operating within the strait it’s self. Our destroyers and carriers in the region are out in the gulf where they can’t even be seen from land. We might have some unmanned naval assets lurking around in the strait, but that is about it. The closer we get to land, the easier it is for our ships to be detected, and the less time our defenses have to respond to attacks. We basically aren’t sailing close enough to Iran to even give them a chance at shooting one of our big ships. This distance keeps our sailors safe, but also means we can’t really shoot speedboats actively moving around without sending something in much close to target them.

Second, most of the ships we sent to the region can’t do significant de-mining. Our aircraft carriers and destroyers can detect mines near them, but they don’t really carry the equipment to clear minefields. They have self defense systems, mostly some of their helicopters, that could handle a few, but mine clearing is not a job on the resume of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers or any of our aircraft carriers. We do have dedicated mine clearing ships, and the LCS has a mine warfare module, but as far as I have heard, there are only two LCS’s attached to the task force outside the straits. I haven’t heard of any of the older minesweepers being in the area yet. I don’t even know if either of those two are carrying the mine module, but even if the both were, it is going to take a while for two ships to search and clear the whole strait. Regardless, both the LCS with the mine module, and the older ships have limited ability to deal with done or boat swarm attacks, especially if they are actively clearing mines. They would need other ships, probably destroyers, nearby to protect them while they worked. That would put our ships far closer to Iran than we want to be right now.

We might be able to do some de-mining with our subs, but those are even more expensive than destroyers, and I’m not sure how fast they can work while remaining undetected. If we aren’t taking the risk of letting the Iranians try to shoot at a Burke or an LCS, we certainly aren’t going to let them try to shoot at a Virginia or a Seawolf!

The root of the problem is that we would need US boats and sailors right in the middle of that choke point operating for extended periods of time, and that would let Iran try to swarm them or take pot shots the whole time they were there. Our military leaders don’t want to give Iran that opportunity if they don’t have to, so for now Iran gets to dump mines into the straight and we will just start trying to find where they are storing the mines and start chipping away at their speedboat supply. Unfortunately, Iran still has a lot of other stuff that we would like to bomb as well, so the speedboats may not be a top priority.

- Bret

quote:

Originally posted by kz1000:
I was 12 years old in 1980, and had the pleasure of laying next to the boom operator who was refueling F-111's. Civil Air Patrol provided me the awesome opportunity. RIP.

It doesn't mean anything really, but the most beautiful woman I've ever met in my life was a boom operator on a KC 135 at Griffiss. The kind of gal who could walk into a room and every head would turn. Stunning beauty. I had the opportunity to buy her a drink and chat with her for a few hours at the NCO club one evening. I'll never forget it.

I always thought, " why aren't you walking down a runway or on magazine covers". Just a small town girl making her way...

Seeing this crash brought up those memories. May God bless our service members.

quote:

we would need US boats and sailors right in the middle of that choke point operating for extended periods of time,

Thanks for the detailed response sadler. Very insightful.

Rather than boats and sailors, how about planes and pilots? If we can kabloo-ee speedboats off Venezuela/Columbia, surely we can here as well with more urgency and coverage?

quote:

Originally posted by bozman:
Sigmonkey...

Was not trying to cause a dust up or anger you...

You absolutely did not.
And you posting information was no where out of line. My apologies if it appeared I targeted you, as it was not the case. (it's the proliferation of garbage "AI" that makes so much information suspect.)

My anger is a 47 year old burn being stirred.

And it couples with the GDCs and the hard driven agenda to destroy what many people love in this world.

Everything the say and do is 180 degrees, and the same with all their accusations and lies about those unlike them.

I can do little about such things, but it's like watching a family member destroy themselves that often touches others. You can accept them doing damage to themselves, and come to grips with that, but the collateral damage to others, is wholly unacceptable.

quote:

Originally posted by sadlerbw:
First off, we are not operating within the strait it’s self. Our destroyers and carriers in the region are out in the gulf where they can’t even be seen from land. We might have some unmanned naval assets lurking around in the strait, but that is about it.

The only USN combatants within the Persian Gulf itself are the 3 LCS ships which are based in Bahrain, however they may be with the larger battle group that's in the Gulf of Oman. You're correct that in order to start de-mining an area, some level of security needs to be established. The most restricted area of the Strait is 20-miles wide, which including two traffic lanes for insanely large ships like tankers, there's not a lot of space to maintain defensive distance from shore & boat fired missiles. Mine clearing today is done via drone-boat and by helicopter towing equipment, a very vulnerable position. As for escorting, the current battle group only has enough escorts to provide the defensive shield to protect the carriers but, not enough to be re-tasked to be running escort missions. This is where the lack of a frigate and the short-comings of the LCS are glaringly obvious.

quote:

We do have dedicated mine clearing ships, and the LCS has a mine warfare module, but as far as I have heard, there are only two LCS’s attached to the task force outside the straits. I haven’t heard of any of the older minesweepers being in the area yet. I don’t even know if either of those two are carrying the mine module, but even if the both were, it is going to take a while for two ships to search and clear the whole strait.

There's three LCS in the region (Canberra, Tulsa and Santa Barbara), all three are carrying the mine clearing module as they replaced the four mine-countermeasure ships that were recently shipped back to CONUS.
Navy’s Avenger Class Mine Hunters Have Left The Middle East For Good

quote:

We might be able to do some de-mining with our subs, but those are even more expensive than destroyers, and I’m not sure how fast they can work while remaining undetected. If we aren’t taking the risk of letting the Iranians try to shoot at a Burke or an LCS, we certainly aren’t going to let them try to shoot at a Virginia or a Seawolf!

Submarines do not do such work, no national asset is going to be used for mine clearing. In the big strategic picture, maritime mine clearing was a task that was assigned to joint-NATO squadrons, whereas the USN was more focused on missile-defense and providing the offensive punch.

Juan Browne's ten video with more details on the 135 crash:

https://youtu.be/elkutLRwKug

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
https://x.com/sentdefender/status/2032428099682308607

Buzz-Bomb...

The mines in the Strait reminds me of the Dardennelles campaign (sp?) in WWI.

Turks had minefields protected by artillery. Brits didn’t have the ability to clear mines under fire, so the Strait remained closed to the Allied fleet.

Funny how, a century+ later, we are dealing with such a similar situation again…

NOBODY is sending a large ship close to Iran, and we don’t have PT boats anymore, which could deal with the small Iranian boats (think US v Japan in the Solomons, or Brit MGBs v German E-boats in the Channel in WWII).

Are you guys saying we don’t have tools to deal with a couple hundred small boats?

According to 'Unclassified Video' I've seen of Venezuelan Drug Cartel boats in the Caribbean, I believe we have the tools necessary.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/...yfh%2B4NPEucNCUGk%3D

US Sending More Marines, Warships to Middle East

The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, consisting of around 5,000 Marines and sailors, is currently operating near Japan.

ARLINGTON, Va.—A U.S. Marine Expeditionary Unit is set to reposition to the Middle East amid ongoing military operations against Iran, a U.S. official familiar with the matter has told The Epoch Times.

Other media outlets first reported that the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), consisting of around 5,000 Marines and sailors, had received orders to head to the Middle East.

The 31st MEU is currently operating near Japan, aboard the USS Tripoli amphibious assault ship, and the USS San Diego and USS New Orleans amphibious transport dock ships.

Such a force could bring additional land, amphibious, and aerial combat and support capabilities to the region.

As an amphibious assault ship, the USS Tripoli is akin to a small aircraft carrier and can launch specialized fighter aircraft. In recent weeks, the ship has been photographed operating with the Marine Corps’ short-takeoff variant F-35B Lightning II stealth fighter jets.

The three ships supporting the 31st MEU are also capable of launching a variety of attack and troop transport helicopters, as well as amphibious landing craft.

quote:

Originally posted by nhracecraft:
According to 'Unclassified Video' I've seen of Venezuelan Drug Cartel boats in the Caribbean, I believe we have the tools necessary.

I saw those too, but those are only a few at a time and they don't have anti-ship drone/missile support plus that's out in the open water.

People seem to be implying we can't secure the Hormuz Strait because the Iranians have a couple hundred 35'ish boats with 50 cals and twin 200hp Yamahas. We supposedly have control of the airspace, satellites that give us real-time pictures of what's going on, but now we are flummoxed by a waterborne Hilux?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: trapper189,

Well... I just learned that 3 of the 6 onboard the downed KC-135 were stationed at Rickenbacker (confirmed by the Governor and the local news). My home lies directly on final for runways 23 (L & R).

These guys (and gals) fly over my home between 1,000 and 4,000 feet AGL every day.

I am a private pilot and military aviation nut, and I had my house built here 23 years ago because it was on final to Rick.

Sad day here in Ohio.

Fair skies airmen...