Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday their forces stopped four ships attempting to transit the strategic Strait of Hormuz over the past 24 hours.
“Four vessels that had intended to transit through the southern area of the Strait of Hormuz via an illegal and unsafe route were stopped over the past 24 hours after warning shots were fired by the IRGC Navy,” the Guards said in a statement quoted by state television, adding that the ships had “altered course”.
Iran has in recent weeks hit tankers using a route hugging the Omani coast to traverse the strait, in a bid to strongarm vessels into using its own waters and pay for safe passage. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Saturday there was no military solution to the escalating conflict between Saudi Arabia and the Tehran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen after both sides traded attacks.
“We believe that there is no military solution to the issue of Yemen, Bab al-Mandab, and other regional issues,” said Araghchi in an interview published on Saturday by the state-run Iran Daily newspaper, calling for “dialogue”.
He said the situation in Yemen “cannot be attributed to Iran” and that the incidents occurring in the area of the Bab al-Mandab Strait were “rooted in old disputes and issues between Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the countries of the region”.
Renewed conflict between the Houthis in Yemen and Saudi Arabia — which had largely been frozen since a UN-negotiated truce in 2022 — flared up this month with the Tehran-backed rebels declaring a blockade of Saudi ports and claiming attacks on tankers.
The blockade has threatened Saudi Arabia’s ability to get its supplies to the world following Iran’s parallel blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the kingdom’s only other maritime route.
On Friday, a Houthi spokesman said the rebels were not blocking traffic through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and that the maritime blockade “only affects the Saudi side”.
