Israel says that Iran’s navy chief, Alireza Tangsiri, is dead. Israel also says Iran’s head of naval intelligence, Behnam Rezaei, is dead too. However, no other source has confirmed or denied the report, not even Iran.
The closure of Hormuz has Put Extreme Pressure on Trump.
Iran’s closure of the narrow waterway that facilitates the movement of oil ships from the Gulf has already cost the world billions of dollars. It is estimated that oil worth slightly over $1 billion in revenue passes through the strait every day.
Yet the US and its allies cannot have their normal oil supplies now. The Gulf countries have also been adversely affected by the closure because they transport only a fraction of their oil through pipelines. They ship the rest through the Strait of Hormuz.
Under normal circumstances, the US and Israel might have sent troops on the ground to open the passage forcibly. However, since now the risk is too high, the two can only rely on intelligence and aerial attacks.
Speaker of Parliament Spared
Yesterday, Israel’s Minister for Defense, Israel Katz, announced that Alireza Tangsiri of Iran died from an Israeli military airstrike on Wednesday. The Israeli Defense Forces then explained that they had targeted him at a military safehouse at the port of Bandar Abbas, where he was holed up with other senior officers. Among those said to have died in the strike was the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ naval head of intelligence, Behnam Rezaei.
Elsewhere, it has been reported that Iran’s House Speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and the country’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Abbas Araghchi, have been taken off the list of officials targeted for assassination. The source said that Pakistan, which has volunteered to mediate between the US and Iran made the request, allegedly seeing them as potential facilitators of dialogue.