US sees no evidence of Iranian mines in Hormuz, blames attacks for disruption

The United States has rendered Iran’s navy “combat ineffective” and is continuing strikes to ensure freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Dan Caine said on Friday.

Speaking at a Pentagon briefing, Caine said US forces had struck more than 6,000 targets in Iran since the start of the operation and were continuing to target missile, drone and naval capabilities.

“The only thing preventing commercial traffic from flowing through the straits right now… is Iran,” he said, adding Tehran was “holding the straits closed.”

Caine said US forces were targeting Iran’s mine-laying capabilities, naval bases and missiles that could threaten shipping in the strategic waterway.

“In less than two weeks, we’ve rendered the Iranian navy combat ineffective,” he said.

He added that US forces had used long-range artillery systems to strike Iranian targets, including firing precision strike missiles for the first time in combat and using ATACMS missiles to sink several vessels, including a submarine.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei was “wounded and likely disfigured” and that the country’s leadership was “desperate and hiding.”

“They’ve gone underground, cowering. That’s what rats do,” Hegseth said at a Pentagon briefing alongside the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Khamenei message questioned

Hegseth also cast doubt on a message attributed to Mojtaba Khamenei that was read on Iranian state television.

“He put out a statement yesterday, a weak one actually, but there was no voice and there was no video. It was a written statement,” Hegseth said.

“Iran has plenty of cameras and plenty of voice recorders. Why a written statement? I think you know why.”

He added that the situation inside Iran’s leadership was unclear. “Who’s in charge? Iran may not even know.”

Hegseth said the United States and Israel were dismantling Iran’s military capabilities at a pace “the world has never seen before.”

“Never before has a modern, capable military… been so quickly destroyed and made combat ineffective,” he said.

He said the combined air forces of the United States and Israel had struck more than 15,000 targets across Iran.

“The combination of the world’s two most powerful air forces is unprecedented and unbeatable,” Hegseth said.

Iran’s capabilities

Hegseth said Iran’s military had been severely degraded.

“Iran has no air defenses. Iran has no air force. Iran has no navy,” he said, adding that missile launches had dropped sharply and drone attacks had fallen by more than 90%.

Hegseth said the campaign was also destroying Iran’s ability to rebuild its arsenal.

“As of two days ago, Iran’s entire ballistic missile production capacity… has been functionally defeated,” he said.

“We’re shooting down and destroying what missiles they still have in stock, but more importantly ensuring that they have no ability to make more.”

Ali Asghar Hejazi, deputy chief of staff to the former Supreme Leader, and Alireza Arafi, a member of the Guardian Council and a member of Interim Leadership Council are among clerics who have raised concerns about Mojtaba Khamenei’s health and managerial capacity, sources told Iran International.

They are pushing for authority at the top of the Islamic Republic to return to a temporary leadership council.

Hejazi and Arafi are also among influential clerics who have criticized the growing power of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and the increasing dominance of its commanders over government decision-making during the war.

Divisions between political officials and ruling clerics on one side and Revolutionary Guards commanders on the other have deepened following the killing of Iran’s former leader, particularly after Mojtaba Khamenei was introduced as the new head of the Islamic Republic.

The International Atomic Energy Agency is trying to arrange a new nuclear deal between the United States and Iran, its chief Rafael Grossi said, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.

Grossi made the remarks after consultations in Moscow with Rosatom head Alexei Likhachev, TASS reported.

He also said the IAEA cannot provide definitive proof that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons because its access to Iran’s nuclear facilities has been reduced, and expressed hope the agency could resume inspections through renewed talks with Tehran.

US President Donald Trump said the United States would escort vessels through the Strait of Hormuz if needed and warned Washington would strike Iran “very hard over the next week.”

Asked in a Fox News interview about helping oil tankers pass through the key shipping route, Trump said: “We would do it if we needed to… hopefully things are going to go very well. We’re going to see what happens.”

“We’re going to be hitting them very hard over the next week,” he added in the interview with Fox’s Brian Kilmeade.