US Central Command on Tuesday said its forces had redirected 89 commercial vessels as part of the “total enforcement” of the US blockade against Iran, aimed at stopping commerce into and out of Iranian ports.
US President Donald Trump convened a meeting on Iran with his top national security team on Monday evening that included a briefing on military options, Axios reported citing two US officials.
The meeting came hours after Trump announced he was suspending attacks he said had been planned for Tuesday.
Axios cited US officials as saying Trump had not made a final decision to strike Iran before announcing the pause, though some officials had expected him to decide on military action at the meeting.
The report cited US officials and regional sources as saying Trump held off partly because several Arab leaders raised concerns about possible Iranian retaliation against oil facilities and infrastructure.
A US source close to Trump cited by Axios said that Iran hawks who spoke to the president believed “he is in the mood of cracking their head open to get them to move in the negotiations.”
The United States seized an Iran-linked oil tanker in the Indian Ocean overnight as President Donald Trump threatened to resume military strikes on Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing three US officials.
The tanker, Skywave, was sanctioned by the US in March for transporting Iranian oil, the report said.
Ship-tracking data showed the vessel sailing west of Malaysia on Tuesday after transiting the Malacca Strait, according to the WSJ.
The vessel was likely carrying more than 1 million barrels of crude loaded at Iran’s Kharg Island in February, the report said, citing brokers and Lloyd’s List Intelligence data.
Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said the United States and Iran were discussing a possible memorandum of understanding that could set the terms for future negotiations, in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.
“What we are talking about now is hopefully to sign a (memorandum of understanding) between the US and Iran,” Abdelatty said.
“That could lead the way for setting the parameters, the principles, that would be subject to negotiations later on,” he added.
Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz rose sharply last week as Iran-linked trade increased despite the US blockade, Lloyd’s List reported, citing vessel-tracking data.
At least 54 ships transited the strait between May 11 and 17, up from 25 the previous week, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence.
The vessels included 10 China-owned ships after Tehran said Chinese vessels would be permitted to transit, two LPG carriers leaving the Persian Gulf for India, and an ADNOC-owned LNG carrier entering the waterway via dark transit.
Long viewed as merely an oil chokepoint, the Strait of Hormuz is now emerging as a digital flashpoint, after Iran floated “protection fees” for subsea fiber-optic cables crossing the waterway in a move experts warn could give Tehran new leverage.
Ebrahim Zolfaghari, spokesperson for Iran's military command center, wrote on X last week: “We will impose tolls on internet cables.”
Media outlets close to the IRGC have also said companies such as Google, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon must comply with the Islamic Republic’s laws, and that cable-owning companies must pay permit fees for cables to pass through.
Subsea cables carry the overwhelming majority of the global internet and financial traffic, connecting Europe, Asia and the Persian Gulf through a vast underwater network that powers everything from banking systems and cloud computing to government communications and energy markets.
The risk is no longer theoretical. Alcatel Submarine Networks, the world’s largest cable-laying company, has already paused subsea cable repair operations in the Persian Gulf after issuing force majeure notices tied to growing security risks in the region.
“The undersea network of undersea cables, it's not just important, it’s absolutely critical – trillions of dollars of financial transactions take place through these cables,” said Tom Sharpe, who served 27 years as a Royal Navy officer commanding four warships.
“It’s the internet, which of course if enough of that collapses can have a devastating effect," he said.
While these networks are global, experts say the Persian Gulf is uniquely vulnerable because there are fewer redundant cable routes compared to regions like the Atlantic.
“When you go to other places in the world, let’s say the [Persian] Gulf, there are far fewer, and therefore that redundancy becomes less and less, and therefore the vulnerability goes up,” Sharpe explained.
Iranian lawmakers discussed plans last week that could target submarine cables linking Persian Gulf littoral states to Europe and Asia. Iranian state-linked media have also floated proposals requiring foreign operators to comply with Iranian licensing laws and pay fees for maintenance and repair access.
The proposals appear to be part of a broader effort by Iranian hardliners to test how far Tehran can extend its authority over infrastructure crossing the Persian Gulf, even when that infrastructure is privately owned or tied to foreign governments.
Escalate, test, adjust
Sharpe believes Tehran is following a familiar escalation model — gradually testing international reactions before potentially taking more aggressive steps.
“I think, look, it seems to me at the moment we’re in the sort of inject uncertainty phase. Let’s see what the markets do. Let’s see how the companies react. Let’s see what insurers do,” Sharpe said. “They escalate. They test. They adjust.”
According to Sharpe, the strategy mirrors tactics previously employed by Russia around undersea infrastructure and later adapted by the Houthis in the Red Sea.
“They’re very good at escalation management,” he added. “They don’t go straight to the nuclear option and start just snipping cables.”
Charlie Brown, Senior Advisor at United Against Nuclear Iran, who specializes in maritime sanctions enforcement and the tracking of illicit shipping, said the issue extends far beyond internet access alone because submarine cables often cross multiple jurisdictions and are owned by consortiums involving companies and governments from around the world.
“This goes beyond merely the cable itself and the data on it,” Brown told Iran International. “These are cross-jurisdictional issues that affect many people in many different jurisdictions.”
New toll booth under the sea
Brown described the Islamic Republic’s approach as resembling a mafia-style protection racket aimed at controlling — rather than immediately destroying — critical underwater infrastructure.
“Yeah, it’s very interesting. I mean, so this ends up showing that it’s a money-making racket threatening. So it’s basically a gangster move,” Brown said.
“The IRGC is trying to extend their control to include things on the seabed that don’t belong to them,” he added.
Experts say global internet infrastructure has enough redundancy to prevent a total communications collapse, but warn the bigger risk is the normalization of payments to Tehran.
Max Meizlish, Senior Research Analyst for the Center on Economic and Financial Power at Foundation for Defense of Democracies, sees the cable issue as an extension of Iran’s broader attempts to exert control over the Strait of Hormuz.
“I think that this is just another instance of the Iranian regime putting in place essentially a shakedown in the strait,” Meizlish said.
Since the war began, he said, hardline factions within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have increasingly pushed to expand Tehran’s leverage over both maritime and digital chokepoints.
“We see slowly Iran extending its sphere of influence,” Meizlish said. “The IRGC hardliners want to come out of this conflict actually from a position of relative strength.”
A warning to Washington
Much of what happens next may ultimately depend on enforcement. Existing US sanctions prohibit dealings with the IRGC, meaning companies that pay such fees could expose themselves to secondary sanctions.
But if enforcement weakens, Meizlish warns, firms may gradually begin viewing payments to Tehran as simply another cost of operating in the region.
“Already it’s come out within the shipping sector,” Meizlish told Iran International. “Some ships have made these payments. We’ve seen traffic go through the Tehran toll booth.”
“If the US doesn’t step up pressure and actually actively enforce these sanctions, then some firms will determine that maybe in their risk-based approach, they can go ahead and do this,” he said.
“That would be a strategic error.”