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Updated
Iran laying mines in strait of Hormuz surprised Trump administration – reports
Iran started to lay mines on Thursday in the strait of Hormuz, a crucial Gulf passage for 20% of the world’s oil supply, US officials told the New York Times.
While Donald Trump has boasted that the US military has destroyed Iran’s navy, officials said Iran had started using smaller boats to place mines and enforce the closure of the strait it had imposed on its Gulf neighbours, sending oil prices sky high.
Iran’s move to close the narrow passage has long been an expected move by war planners in previous administrations but apparently took the Trump administration by surprise.
CNN reported on Thursday that senior Trump administration officials told lawmakers in recent classified briefings that they did not plan for the possibility of Iran closing the strait in response to strikes by the US and Israel.
“Planning around preventing this exact scenario … has been a bedrock principle of US national security policy for decades,” a former US official who served in Republican and Democratic administrations told CNN. “I’m dumbfounded.”
