US-Iran ceasefire: Three ships targeted in Strait of Hormuz following Trump's truce extension

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Wednesday that their naval forces stopped two ships attempting to cross the Strait of Hormuz and directed them to the territorial waters of the Islamic Republic.

"The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval force this morning identified and stopped in the Strait of Hormuz two violating ships," the Guards said in a statement.

"The two offending ships... were seized by the IRGC's naval forces and directed to the Iranian coast."

They identified one ship as "MSC-FRANCESCA", which they said belonged "to the Zionist regime" in reference to Israel, and the other as "EPAMINONDAS", which they said was "tampering with navigation systems and jeopardising maritime security."

Iranian media are reporting that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has targeted three ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

The IRGC-affiliated Fars news agency says a vessel named Euphoria was hit and is now grounded off the Iranian coast.

According to Iranian reports, the ships MSC Francesca and Epaminondas were “seized” and redirected toward Iran, citing a statement from the IRGC Navy.

The United States blocked a plane carrying nearly $500 million in banknotes from delivering the cash to Iraq, US media reported on Tuesday, piling pressure on Baghdad to fight Iran-backed militant groups.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Washington has suspended cash shipments to Iraq and frozen funding for security programs following attacks on US interests in the country by groups showing solidarity with Iran.

Iraq has long walked a tightrope between the competing influences of its allies, neighbouring Iran and the United States.

NATO chief Mark Rutte said on Wednesday the alliance would do "what's necessary to defend" its members including Turkey after intercepting four missiles fired from Iran and head into Turkish air space over the past weeks.

A member of the US-led defence alliance, Turkey, which borders Iran, has been largely spared the sort of retaliation from Tehran suffered by countries in the Middle East before the ceasefire.

NATO forces had shot down ballistic missiles fired from Iran for four times, prompting the alliance to deploy a new Patriot missile battery at Incirlik air base in southern Turkey.

"Iran is spreading terror and chaos, and you feel this prominently here in Turkey," Rutte told journalists on a visit to Turkey's largest defence electronics company Aselsan.

"NATO is prepared for such threats and will always do what is necessary to defend Turkey and all others. And we cannot do it alone," he added.

UAE motorists are unlikely to see a sharp drop in fuel prices in May, even as global oil markets ease from March’s peak.

Crude has pulled back—but not enough to signal a full correction.

• Brent crude is now trading close to $99.29 per barrel, up 0.82% on the day

• US crude stands at $90.71, rising 1.15%

• Both benchmarks gained around 3% in the previous session, showing renewed upward pressure

This follows a period where oil surged above $110–$120 in March, before easing into the current $90–$100 range.

Israel's foreign minister on Wednesday urged Beirut to make joint efforts with Israel to counter the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, ahead of talks between the countries set to resume in Washington.

"Tomorrow the direct talks between Israel and Lebanon will resume in Washington DC. I call on the government of Lebanon - let's work together against the terror state that Hezbollah built in your territory," Gideon Saar said in a speech to diplomats at a function marking Israel's 78th Independence Day.

"This cooperation is needed by you even more than by us. It requires moral clarity and the courage to take risks. But there is no real alternative for ensuring a future of peace for you and for us."

A cargo ship leaving Iran was fired upon Wednesday and was stopped in the water, a British maritime agency reported, as the United States continued its blockade of Iranian ports.

"A master of an outbound cargo ship reports having been fired upon and is now stopped in the water. Crew are safe and accounted for. There is no reported damage to the vessel," the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre said.

It said the incident took place eight nautical miles west of Iran.

Hard-line supporters of Iran's government held rallies across the country late Tuesday that included the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard bringing missiles and their launchers into public places for the first time since the ceasefire in the war with Israel and the United States.

The scale of the demonstrations served as a sign of defiance to Israel and the US, which devoted a lot of their airstrike campaign to decimating Iran's ballistic missile arsenal.

Iranian state media showed pictures, videos and wrote about missile demonstrations in Ahvaz, Arak, Bandar Abbas, Bushehr, Kerman, Tabriz, Tehran, Qom and Zanjan.

The missiles included the Faheh, the Kheibar Shekan, the Khorramshahr-4 and the Qadr.

Some of those include the cluster munitions used repeatedly against Israel during the war as a means to get around the country's air defenses.

Britain and France are gathering military planners from about 30 countries to flesh out details of a mission to provide security in the Strait of Hormuz - if and when the key shipping route reopens.

Britain's Defense Ministry said the two-day meeting at a U.K. command-and-control center in London aims to "turn diplomatic consensus into a detailed military plan."

The plan is for an international mission to protect merchant vessels, clear mines and provide reassurance, and is dependent on a "sustainable" ceasefire being reached in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.

Countries, including France and the U.K., have pledged to send ships and mine-clearing drones.

Despite skepticism that the plan will ever be put into action, British Defense Secretary John Healey said Wednesday he is "confident that, over the next two days, real progress can be made."

China warned on Wednesday that the situation in the Middle East was at a "critical juncture" after US President Donald Trump extended a ceasefire to allow Iran more time to negotiate.

"The current regional situation stands at a critical juncture transitioning between war to peace; the paramount priority remains to make every effort to prevent a resumption of hostilities," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told a news briefing.

Iran's agriculture minister said a US naval blockade has had little impact on the country's ability to supply basic goods and food, citing strong domestic production and alternative import routes.

"Despite the US naval blockade, we have no problem in supplying basic goods and food because, due to the size of the country, it is possible to import from different borders," Agriculture Minister Gholamreza Nouri said on Tuesday.

"About 85 percent of agricultural products and basic goods are produced domestically, so the country's food security is established," he added, according to the official IRNA news agency.

The United States imposed a naval blockade on Iran's ports and coasts on April 13, days after a ceasefire was announced that paused its war with Iran.

Iran has strongly criticised the blockade, describing it as a violation of the ceasefire.

Britain's annual inflation rate jumped to 3.3 percent in March as the Middle East war sent oil and gas prices surging, official data showed Wednesday.

The Consumer Prices Index increased from 3.0 percent in the 12 months to February, the Office for National Statistics said in a statement.

"Inflation climbed in March, largely due to increased fuel prices, which saw their largest increase for over three years," Grant Fitzner, chief economist of the Office for National Statistics, said in a statement.

Iran hanged a man on Wednesday convicted of links to Israel's Mossad spy agency, the judiciary said, the latest in a string of executions against the backdrop of the war with Israel and the United States.

"Mehdi Farid... was hanged this morning for extensive cooperation with the terrorist spy service Mossad after the case was examined and the final verdict was approved," the judiciary's Mizan Online website said.

It was not immediately clear when he was arrested or when his trial took place, but the court found him guilty of "intelligence cooperation and espionage for the Zionist regime" under the capital offence "corruption on earth".

An Israeli strike on Lebanon's Bekaa region killed one person and wounded two others on Wednesday, Lebanese state media reported, despite an ongoing truce between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah.

"One person was killed and two others were wounded as a result of an attack carried out by an enemy drone at dawn on the outskirts of Al-Jabur in West Bekaa," Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported.

Hezbollah on Tuesday said it had launched rockets and attack drones at a site in northern Israel in response to "blatant" Israeli ceasefire violations, which it said included "attacks on civilians and the destruction of their homes and villages".

The Israeli military said that day that Hezbollah "launched several rockets" towards soldiers stationed in south Lebanon and that the military struck the launcher in response.

NNA on Wednesday reported Israeli artillery shelling and demolitions in southern towns Israel currently occupies.

An Iranian gunboat fired at a container ship off the coast of Oman on Wednesday, causing damage but no casualties, the UKMTO British maritime security agency said.

"The master of a container ship reported that the vessel was approached by one IRGC gunboat... that then fired upon the vessel, which has caused heavy damage to the bridge. No fires or environmental impact reported," the UKMTO said.

It added that the incident took place 15 nautical miles northeast of Oman and all the crew were safe.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in a post on X, said the United States Navy will continue its blockade of Iranian ports. He warned that Kharg Island oil storage is nearing capacity and that Iran’s fragile oil wells may be shut in, directly targeting the regime’s primary revenue sources.

Bessent added that the Treasury will maintain 'maximum pressure through Economic Fury' to disrupt Tehran’s ability to generate, move, and repatriate funds. He also cautioned that anyone facilitating covert trade or finance with Iran risks US sanctions.

He said the Treasury is freezing funds stolen by corrupt leadership on behalf of the people of Iran.

Donald Trump has extended the ceasefire with Iran, but Tehran has not yet confirmed whether it will attend a new round of peace talks with the U.S. later this week.

In an interview with the BBC, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said Iran approached the first round of Islamabad talks 'with good faith and a sense of seriousness, but you have a negotiating party that has shown its lack of seriousness, lack of good faith.'

Donald Trump has claimed that Iran is 'collapsing financially' in a post on Truth Social, saying the country is 'starving for cash' and losing around $500 million a day.

Trump alleged that Iran’s military and police are complaining about unpaid wages and said Tehran wants the Strait of Hormuz reopened 'immediately'.

He added that the situation amounts to an 'SOS', amid ongoing tensions over the US blockade of Iranian maritime routes.

The disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is exposing a structural constraint in global energy markets: alternatives exist, but were they ever designed to fully replace the corridor?

The strait is not just another transit route. It is the only maritime exit from the Arabian Gulf to open seas. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development estimates that roughly 20%–25% of global seaborne oil and about 20% of liquefied natural gas pass through it each day. That concentration of flows explains why disruptions quickly translate into global price volatility.

The International Energy Agency has described the current outage as the largest oil supply disruption in history. Its Executive Director Fatih Birol said recently that it amounts to the “biggest energy crisis in history,” according to Reuters. Crude prices also surged as markets began pricing in prolonged supply disruption from the Gulf.

Read more here.

The United States has not moved a key missile defense system out of South Korea, a US military official said Tuesday, following reports that Washington was shifting parts of it to the Middle East.

The Washington Post reported last month, citing unnamed officials, that the United States was moving parts of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system out of South Korea for use in its war with Iran.

The report had caused disquiet in South Korea, where the system is a pillar of national defense against nuclear-armed North Korea.

The commander of the US forces in South Korea said Washington had "not moved any THAAD systems" out of the country.

"THAAD still remains on the peninsula currently," Xavier Brunson said at a US Senate committee hearing in Washington.

"We are sending munitions forward (to the Middle East), and those are sitting right now waiting to move," Brunson said without providing further details.

Oil prices fell along with stocks Wednesday as investors assess the chances of US-Iran peace talks after Donald Trump extended his ceasefire at the eleventh hour but kept his blockade of the Strait of Hormuz in place.

With the two-week truce in its final hours, the US president said he would push the deadline back indefinitely following a request from mediator Pakistan and stressing the need to give Tehran's "fractured" leadership time to form a proposal.

He had previously indicated he would not extend the truce and warned he would resume bombing the Islamic republic when it expired.

The decision not to carry out fresh attacks on Iran but continue to prevent its ships from passing through the Strait - a major sticking point between the rivals - left traders awaiting clearer developments.

Iranian hard-liners rallied late Wednesday night as possible talks in Islamabad with the United States broke down, with members of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard apparently bringing a ballistic missile on a mobile launcher to one event.

Footage aired by Iranian state TV showed men carrying Kalashnikov-style assault rifles riding atop a missile that resembled a Qadr ballistic missile in Iran's capital, Tehran.

Such Qadr missiles can release individual bomblets known as cluster munitions, which Iran used widely when attacking Israel during the war.

In a social media post accompanied by footage of warplanes, ships and US troops, CENTCOM highlighted remarks from US Central Command chief, Admiral Brad Cooper, speaking alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at a recent briefing.

“We are rearming. We’re retooling, and we’re adjusting our tactics, techniques and procedures,” Cooper said, adding that US forces are adapting during the ceasefire period.

The update comes after Donald Trump announced an extension of the truce with Iran, which had been set to expire today.

Trump offered a combative social media post Tuesday night after indefinitely extending a ceasefire in the Iran war after talks in Islamabad failed to materialize.

Writing on his Truth Social website, Trump contended that "Iran doesn't want the Strait of Hormuz closed, they want it open" so they can sell their crude oil.

Trump said if he allowed that to happen, there "can never be a Deal with Iran, unless we blow up the rest of their Country, their leaders included!"

It's unclear what the next step forward is to resume talks in Pakistan's capital.

Secretary-General António Guterres said the US announcement that it is extending the ceasefire will create "critical space for diplomacy and confidence-building between Iran and the United States," according to his spokesperson.

"We encourage all parties to build on this momentum, refrain from actions that could undermine the cease-fire, and engage constructively in negotiations to reach a sustainable and lasting resolution," U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said late Tuesday.

The secretary-general "fully supports" Pakistan's efforts to facilitate U.S.-Iran talks and hopes its efforts "will contribute to creating conditions conducive to a comprehensive and durable resolution to the conflict," Dujarric said.

Crude oil futures spiked early on Wednesday, with Brent jumping 3.14% to $98.48 per barrel and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) rising 1.1% $90.66 as of 8.58 am Tokyo time on Wednesday (April 22, 2026).

The rise is US crude oil futures coincides with Washington’s announcement of an indefinite extension of the ceasefire with Iran.

WTI crude futures rose to as high as US$90.70 per barrel and were trading up 59 cents, or 0.7 percent, at $90.26.

Read more here.

US President Donald Trump has said the US will not lift the Hormuz blockade until a "deal" made. The US president's comments come amid uncertainty as Iran skips peace talks in Pakistan, and Iran-linked ships are seized by the US Navy.

US forces have boarded the crude oil tanker M/T Tifani in the Indian Ocean, marking what appears to be a new escalation in efforts to disrupt Iran-linked shipping. The move, confirmed by Pentagon, came as the 330-metre very large crude carrier (VLCC), built in 2003, was sailing far away from Hormuz while appearing fully laden with crude. The Tifani was reportedly carrying about 2 million barrels of crude loaded at Kharg, a key Iranian oil export hub, earlier this month. Tracking data showed the vessel passed Dondra Head on April 19 and entered Southeast Asia on April 20 before being boarded by US Marines.

The Middle East conflict and the disruption around the Strait of Hormuz are shaking confidence in the world’s most important oil chokepoint, according to International Energy Agency (IEA) chief Fatih Birol. He warned that even if the waterway reopens quickly, the oil market will not simply snap back to normal, because restoring output, shipping flows and investment "will take time".

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif  has thanked Donald Trump for extending the the ceasefire with Iran, saying the move will give diplomacy more time to progress.

In a post on social media, Sharif said he was expressing gratitude both personally and on behalf of Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, describing the extension as an opportunity for “ongoing diplomatic efforts to take their course”.

He added that Pakistan would continue to push for a negotiated settlement and voiced hope that both sides would respect the truce and work towards a comprehensive peace deal.

Sharif also pointed to a planned second round of talks in Islamabad, which he said could help secure a permanent end to the conflict.

US President Donald Trump issued a statement on Truth Social asserting that he was extending the ceasefire with Iran. He wrote: "Based on the fact that the Government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so and, upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal.

"I have therefore directed our Military to continue the Blockade and, in all other respects, remain ready and able, and will therefore extend the Ceasefire until such time as their proposal is submitted, and discussions are concluded, one way or the other."

Day 53: Pakistan urges the US and Iran to extend their ceasefire

Day 52: Fighting to resume as ceasefire ends Wednesday: Trump

Day 51: Iran refuses new round of talks, say reports

Day 50: Indian ships reverse course in Strait of Hormuz

Day 49: Trump says Iran agrees to 'never' close Hormuz strait again

Day 48: Trump: Iran agreed to hand over its enriched uranium

Day 47: US optimistic about reaching peace deal with Iran

Day 46: 2 days to US-Iran talks in Pakistan? Trump thinks so

Day 45: US, Iran discuss 'another round' of direct talks

Day 44: US to begin 'blockade' of Iranian ports on Monday

Day 43: 3-way talks with the US and Iran begin in Pakistan

Day 42: Trump says Iran has 'no cards' as Vance heads for talks

Day 41: Kuwait condemns drone attacks, US warns vs Hormuz toll

Day 40: Trump agrees to suspend attack on Iran by two weeks