CENTCOM: Over 20 US warships enforcing blockade on Iran

The naval blockade is aimed at choking off the regime’s oil exports and commercial shipping.

By Joshua Marks, JNS

U.S. Central Command said on Sunday that more than 20 American warships are enforcing a naval blockade against Iran, with forces having redirected 61 commercial vessels and disabled four others to ensure compliance.

Washington launched the maritime operation on April 13, targeting all vessels entering or leaving Iranian ports in the Arabian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz, disrupting the regime’s oil exports.

It is part of the Trump administration’s “Operation Economic Fury”—a sweeping pressure campaign targeting Tehran’s economy through sanctions enforcement and the naval blockade aimed at choking off the regime’s oil exports and commercial shipping.

Iran is continuing its internal repression as the economic screws tighten, with the judiciary-linked Mizan news agency reporting on Monday that a 29-year-old man convicted of spying for the United States and Israel has been executed.

The outlet identified him as Erfan Shakourzadeh and said he was hanged after being accused of passing classified information to the CIA and Mossad.

On May 4, authorities executed three men convicted of involvement in anti-government protests that rocked the country in December and January.

Iran has executed 190 people so far this year, according to the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights.

“The economic pressure on Iran right now is increasing dramatically. Not only is their government in the country losing their main export revenues because of our blockade, but also the Economic Fury operation that we launched, starting just a few weeks ago, is collecting the monies of the corrupt IRGC leaders that they’ve squirreled away abroad,” U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told the CBS news program “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Sunday.

“What I can tell you is Operation Economic Fury is devastating the Iranian economy right now,” U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz told “Fox News Sunday” host Shannon Bream.

“Their currency is in free fall, their foreign currency reserves are near zero… you’re seeing our Gulf Arab allies not only completely aligned with us—standing with us diplomatically, economically, and militarily—but many of them often played both sides when it came to Iran.”

Waltz continued, “Iran has now shown its true colors and they are publicly saying thank God we are taking actions before Iran could hold the world hostage with a nuclear weapon,’ and we shouldn’t also discount the fact that you see the United Arab Emirates and even Israel working together with the Iron Dome system and other types of military cooperation. So we’re seeing the world align with us. Iran has shown its true colors.” Yet, he continued, U.S. President Donald Trump “is giving diplomacy a chance backed by our great U.S. military.”

Meanwhile, Trump said on “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson” on Sunday that the United States will at some point extract Iran’s enriched uranium, buried deep under rubble.

“We’ll get that at some point… We have it surveilled,” Trump said. “I did a thing called Space Force, and they are watching that… If anybody got near the place, we would know about it—and we’d blow them up.”

The Islamic regime is believed to possess 440 kilograms (970 pounds) of uranium enriched to 60% purity, a short technical step from weapons-grade (90%) and enough to theoretically produce up to 10 bombs.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi told the Associated Press late last month that much of Iran’s highly enriched uranium is likely still at the Isfahan nuclear complex, one of three nuclear sites (Fordow and Natanz) bombed by the U.S. military on June 22, 2025 in “Operation Midnight Hammer,” toward the end of Israel’s 12-day war against Iran.

The IAEA believes roughly 200 kilograms (about 440 pounds) of the material is stored in tunnels at the Isfahan site, Grossi has said, according to the AP report.

The U.S. Space Force, established in 2019 as the newest branch of the armed forces under the Department of the Air Force, is tasked with protecting American and allied interests in space, with its personnel operating and defending critical systems such as GPS, satellite communications, and missile warning networks.