LIVE: Ayatollah aide warns US ships could sink if Iran strikes resume

Iran’s military has threatened to ‘respond’ if the US blockade continues with Tehran warning American ships could be sunk.

On Wednesday, the military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei reiterated the warning, without elaborating.

‘We will not tolerate the naval blockade. If it continues, Iran will respond,’ Mohsen Rezaei, a former commander-in-chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards who was named as a military adviser by Khamenei in March told state television.

He also warned against a new round of fighting between the US and Iran, saying it could possibly see US ships sunk and ‘its soldiers will be killed.’

‘If the US starts another war, it should expect that we take a large number of them prisoner,’ he added.

The world is facing a ‘major energy and economic challenge’ as oil prices have soared in the wake of the war in the Middle East, International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol has said.

‘The world is facing the biggest energy crisis in history,’ Birol said at a high-level meeting on the energy transition at IEA headquarters in Paris, adding that oil prices were ‘putting a lot of pressure in many countries’.

Hezbollah has launched a new weapon against Israel in the latest round of fighting.

Small drones controlled with fiber-optic cables the width of dental floss that are capable of avoiding electronic detection have been deployed by the Iran-aligned militants.

These drones – used widely in the war in Ukraine – are small, hard to track and potentially lethal.

Many drones are susceptible to electronic jamming by air defenses. Jamming can cause a drone to crash or return to its point of origin.

But fiber-optic drones are not controlled remotely. They have a thin cable that connects an operator directly to the drone, making it impossible to electronically jam.

The drones are not infallible because the wind – or other drones – can cause the cables to tangle.

Robert Tollast, a drone expert and researcher at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said the drones can be ‘absolutely deadly’ as he explained how they can fly low and creep up on a target.

by Phillip Nieto, US Political Reporter

Donald Trump said he rebuffed Vladimir Putin’s offer to help resolve the Iran war, while urging the Russian leader to accept a ceasefire in Ukraine.

Trump held a private call with Putin on Wednesday to discuss tying the end of the Iran war to Russia’s conflict with Ukraine.

‘He told me he’d like to be involved with the enrichment if he can help us get it. I said, “I’d much rather have you be involved with ending the war with Ukraine,”‘ Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday.

The President went on to claim the rest of the conversation with Putin was ‘very good’ and said he suggested Putin consider ‘a little bit of a ceasefire’ with Ukraine.

Rice supplies are expected to fall this year as farmers cut planting acreage across Asia because of fertilizer shortages and soaring fuel costs from the Iran war.

Rice is central to global food security, and even modest supply disruptions can ripple through countries, lifting prices and straining household budgets, particularly among price-sensitive consumers in Asia and Africa.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization in April forecast rice output would expand by 2 per cent to a record high in 2025/26.

The effects of the Iran war are impacting farmers in top exporters Thailand and Vietnam as well as the import-reliant Philippines and Indonesia, growers and traders said. The war has cut fuel and fertilizer flows through the Strait of Hormuz, a key chokepoint that connects the Gulf to global markets.

‘Farmers have already started planting rice in some countries and are using fewer inputs because prices have gone up,’ said Maximo Torero, chief economist at the UN FAO.

‘We are going to see a tighter global supply situation in the second half of the year and early next year.’

Ships and boats stranded in the Strait of Hormuz

The US is pushing for a new international coalition to restart shipping in the Strait of Hormuz as talks with Tehran stall, US outlets are reporting.

The State Department sent an internal cable to US embassies calling on diplomats to convince governments around the world to join the ‘Maritime Freedom Construct,’ a US-led bloc to share information, coordinate diplomatically, and enforce sanctions, the Wall Street Journal has reported.

Iran has sought to extract a price for being attacked by exerting control over the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which one-fifth of global oil typically transits.

As oil prices remain elevated for weeks, Trump has called on allies to unblock the strait, saying last month that ‘this should have always been a team effort.’

The coalition will see the State Department serving as a ‘diplomatic operations hub’ and the US Central Command providing ‘real-time maritime domain awareness,’ the Journal reported, citing the cable sent on Tuesday.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian has claimed a US naval blockade on Iranian ports is ‘doomed to fail’ as Trump signals American military action could last months.

Pezeshkian says targeting Iran’s ports will deepen disruptions in the Gulf and fail to achieve its targets.

‘Any attempt to impose a maritime blockade or restrictions is contrary to international law… and is doomed to fail,’ he said in a statement.

He also blamed the US and Israel for the ongoing blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, again defending the decision to keep out ‘hostile countries’.

In a message commemorating National Persian Gulf Day on state media, Pezeskhian said the waterway was ‘a symbol of the great Iranian nation’s resistance’.

Donald Trump has threatened to pull US troops from Germany over Berlin’s refusal to back the war in Iran or join a peacekeeping force in the Strait of Hormuz.

The President has lashed out at German Chancellor Friedrich Merz who earlier this week said Iran was ‘humiliating’ Washington at the negotiating table.

‘The United ​States is ⁠studying and reviewing the possible reduction of Troops ⁠in Germany, with a ​determination ⁠to be made over ‌the next short period of time,’ Mr Trump said on ‌Truth Social.

Speaking to students in Marsberg, Merz suggested it was Trump’s team that was being outplayed, despite confident statements from the White House.

‘The Iranians are obviously very skilled at negotiating, or rather, very skilful at not negotiating, letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result,’ he said.

US officials including Vice President JD Vance twice turned back last week from trips to Pakistan to negotiate with Iran, which has voiced doubts about Trump’s sincerity for diplomacy.

Donald Trump said a US naval blockade against Iran could last months leading oil prices to spike to their highest level in more than four years.

Trump is expected to receive a briefing later today on new plans for potential military action in Iran from Admiral Brad Cooper, the head of US Central Command, two sources with knowledge told Axios.

Meeting oil executives, Trump contended that the blockade of Iranian ports – which Tehran has demanded must end before any deal – was more effective than bombing.

The President has told national security officials to prepare for a long blockade of Iran’s ports in order to compel Tehran to give up its nuclear programme, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Trump, according to the report, does not believe that Iran is negotiating in good faith and hopes it can be forced to suspend uranium enrichment for 20 years and accept tight restrictions thereafter.

Speaking after his day with King Charles and Queen Camilla, Trump appeared to take a jab at Sir Keir Starmer.

He described Charles as ‘fantastic’ and a ‘great friend.’

Trump added: ‘I think if he were doing that, if that were up to him, he would have probably helped us with Iran.’

The UK government today said it would introduce new legislation to tackle state-sponsored threats carried out by proxies, after two Jewish men were stabbed in north London in an apparent antisemitic attack on Wednesday.

Security minister Dan Jarvis told Times Radio the government would fast track legislation which would allow the prosecution of people acting as a proxy of a state-sponsored group under Britain’s National Security Act.

The government said the new powers would mean proxies could be dealt with in the same way as foreign intelligence services.

The plans were announced after Wednesday’s stabbings, which follow a spate of recent attacks, many involving arson, on Jewish targets in London. Last October, two people and an attacker were killed after a man drove at a synagogue in the northern English city of Manchester.

Britain’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall, told the BBC the attacks had become ‘the biggest national security emergency’ since 2017, when there were a string of high profile attacks.

The attacks have occurred amid warnings from security officials that Iran has sought to use criminal proxies to carry out hostile activity.

Police said after an arson attack at a synagogue this month that they were investigating possible Iranian links to the incidents. A pro-Iranian government group has said it was responsible.

Jarvis also said on Thursday that there would be an additional £25million to protect the Jewish community, which the government said brings the total funding this year to £58million.

Iran’s consumer prices rose more than 70% between this March and April, compared to last year, Tehran’s government has admitted.

The Statistical Center of Iran reported today that average inflation in the 12 months ending in April rose 53.7% from the same period a year earlier.