5th Fleet (@US5thFleet) March 12, 2026Iran’s new supreme leader affirms importance of Hormuz closureEarlier, Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said that all United States bases in the region should be immediately closed and warned they would be attacked if they remained open. However, he added that "the enemy established military and financial bases in some of these countries years ago to ensure his hegemony over the region. In the recent attack, some of these bases were used; therefore — as we warned previously — we targeted those bases only without aggressing against those countries. Iran's Revolutionary Guards vowed to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed after the call to do so by Mojtaba. However, Pizzotti said numbers had recently been reduced because of the danger from the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Source: The Express Tribune March 13, 2026 05:06 UTC