This May 5, the United States Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, spoke about the operation “Project Freedom”in which US authorities will attend in the transit of ships through the Strait of Hormuzas well as on the current truce with Iran.
This is the first press conference that the United States has offered since the beginning of the operation in the Strait of Hormuz. Hegseth stated that This is an “independent initiative” and different from previous attacks, in addition to qualifying it as an “action of a defensive nature.”
The head of the Pentagon warned that the ceasefire previously announced by the United States “has not ended” and that the only objective of operation “Project Freedom” is to ensure the safety of commercial maritime transport.
“We are not looking for a confrontation. However, Iran also cannot be allowed to prevent innocent countries and their goods from accessing an international waterway,” Hegseth said.
In addition to Hegseth’s statements, this Monday the maritime analysis and monitoring platform Kpler indicated that at least eight vessels, one of them commercial, transited on May 4 through the Strait of Hormuz.
The platform indicated that “the crossings remained practically stable, with a total of eight daily transits,” in addition to pointing out that the ships were classified as “low risk.”
Most of the transits were concentrated from west to east, that is, from the Persian Gulf towards the Gulf of Oman, according to data from the monitoring company.
In addition, Kpler reported that “two landing craft flying the Iranian flag crossed the strait,” bringing the total number of transits to 134. with the Iranian flag since the beginning of the war started by the United States and Israel against Iran on February 28.
On the other hand, the president of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States, Dan Caine, indicated that, after the announcement of the ceasefire with Iran, that Middle Eastern country “has fired at commercial ships on nine occasions, in addition to two container ships having been seized“.
“They have attacked US forces more than 10 times, although all of these incidents have remained, up to this point, below the threshold that would justify the resumption of large-scale combat operations,” he said.
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