US Central Command said on Saturday that its forces fired a Hellfire missile at a Gambia-flagged commercial vessel to prevent it from reaching an Iranian port as the US continues to attack civilian ships in its enforcement of a blockade on Iran.
“US Central Command (CENTCOM) forces observed M/V Lian Star transiting international waters toward an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman and issued more than 20 warnings while informing the vessel it was in violation of the US blockade,” CENTCOM said in a statement.
“A US aircraft disabled the vessel by firing a Hellfire missile into the ship’s engine room after Lian Star’s crew failed to comply. The ship is no longer transiting to Iran,” the command added. Hellfire missiles are typically launched from US military drones, such as the MQ-9 Reaper, and helicopters, including the MH-60 Seahawk and the AH-64 Apache.
CENTCOM said that its forces have “disabled five commercial vessels and redirected 116 to fully enforce the blockade as a ceasefire with Iran remains in effect.”
The command said the attack occurred on Friday, May 29, the same day President Trump suggested in a post on Truth Social that he may lift the blockade on Iran, but US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said on Saturday that the blockade is still “very much in place.”
On Sunday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said that its forces shot down a US MQ-1 Predator drone over Iran’s territorial waters. “An aggressive MQ-1 drone belonging to the US military, which entered Iranian airspace over territorial waters with the aim of carrying out a hostile operation, was identified and destroyed by the IRGC’s modern air defense missiles at dawn today,” the IRGC said.
The IRGC also said on Sunday that it allowed 28 ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz over the previous 24-hour period. Iran has been allowing more vessels to transit the strait under its newly created Persian Gulf Strait Authority, which the US targeted with sanctions.
