By R Anil Kumar
Tehran/Washington/Bengaluru, August 14, 2026. The Strait of Hormuz is “under Iran’s control and management”, the recently appointed head of Iran’s Basij paramilitary unit said on Thursday, August 13, a day after US President Donald Trump said the United States had “total control” of the strategic waterway.
Hossein Taeb said the US had sought to disrupt what he described as the Islamic Republic’s popularity in the region by launching another war in the Strait of Hormuz, but had once more been defeated despite claiming Iran had neither an air force nor a navy.
“Today you see that the Strait of Hormuz is under the management and control of the Islamic Republic,” Taeb said, according to the semi-official Fars news. He added that Iran was continuing on its course in complete security.
After the start of the war, which began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28, Tehran effectively shut the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas was previously shipped.
The US subsequently imposed a naval blockade on Iranian shipping and ports, while saying it would protect freedom of navigation for vessels travelling to and from non-Iranian ports.
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Iran’s joint military command, Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, said later on Thursday that no vessel could transit the Strait of Hormuz without Tehran’s permission.
“The baseless claims made by the United States regarding the normal passage of vessels through the Strait of Hormuz … are nothing more than lies and falsehoods,” the command said in a statement published by state media.
In June, the two countries reached an interim agreement declaring a permanent ceasefire and calling for a swift return to freedom of navigation in the Gulf.
The deal unravelled a few weeks later, with both sides accusing the other of violations. Iran resumed limited attacks on vessels that it said were sailing contrary to the arrangements under the agreement, and the US restarted strikes on Iran’s southern provinces, which Washington said were aimed at degrading Tehran’s ability to target vessels in the Gulf.
In a post on X on Thursday, Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, said that Mojtaba’s strategy would be “offensive war”, if Tehran’s conditions were not met.
“The most enduring path to a new regional order lies in implementing the Hormuz economic-security mechanism, independent of Washington’s military guarantees,” Mokhber wrote, in an apparent reference to an expected deal between Iran and Oman to organise transit through the Strait of Hormuz.
Separately on Thursday, senior military political official Rasoul Sanaei-Rad said Iran would not reopen the strait unless the other side fulfilled its commitments under the interim deal, adding that the reopening of the waterway was not something the US could achieve unilaterally, according to Fars news.
Hormuz shipping traffic capped amid competing claims from US and Iran
Shipping traffic at the Strait of Hormuz fell below the month average towards the end of the week due to volatile sentiment between the United States and Iran, with both countries making competing claims over its control.
The Strait of Hormuz is “under Iran’s control and management”, the recently appointed head of Iran’s Basij paramilitary unit said on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the United States on Thursday said it could maintain a naval blockade of Iran indefinitely and would ratchet up economic pressure on Tehran as ceasefire talks have floundered.
Commodity vessel transits at Hormuz picked up slightly on Thursday, but remained lower than the month’s daily average of 12, based on Kpler data in August so far.
A total of nine vessels transited the strait on Thursday, up from five the previous day, according to Kpler data. The nine vessels included five entries heading into the Gulf and four exits into the Gulf of Oman, mostly via the Iranian shipping route.
Shipping risk persisted. Abu Dhabi National Oil Company said two of its vessels were attacked while transiting the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday evening, with no injuries reported, as the United Arab Emirates accused Iran of carrying out the attack.
Meanwhile, 19 commodity vessels passed through the Bab el-Mandeb strait on Thursday with their transponders on, broadly stable from 20 on the previous day, Kpler data showed.
Some vessels may be sailing at the key waterways with their transponders turned off, which is not considered in the counts.
