President Trump boasted Sunday that the US sank nine Iranian warships ships and “largely destroyed” Tehran’s naval headquarters.
“I have just been informed that we have destroyed and sunk 9 Iranian Naval Ships, some of them relatively large and important,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “We are going after the rest — They will soon be floating at the bottom of the sea, also!”
“In a different attack, we largely destroyed their Naval Headquarters,” the president added. “Other than that, their Navy is doing very well!”
News of the sinking of Iranian ships comes after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed credit for a series of attacks on commercial tankers and vessels since the US and Israeli joint strikes within the theocratic regime.
Just off the north coast of Iran sits the critical chokepoint of the Strait of Hormuz, where an estimated fifth of the world’s seaborne oil flows through on an annual basis. Since the attacks in Iran, traffic through the Strait has plummeted sharply.
Over the past day, Tehran’s vessels have blasted messages telling commercial ships that the strait was closed.
Trump has downplayed concerns about the vital shipping passage.
Three American service members have been killed, and five have been seriously injured during the Operation Epic Fury campaign against Iran, US Central Command revealed Sunday. Details about their deaths are not clear at the moment.
The US began Operation Epic Fury on Saturday, around 9 am local time in Iran, as part of a joint effort with Israel to hit a series of targets aimed at debilitating the theocratic regime and degrading its missile capacity.
Since then, at least 48 top Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have been killed off, according to Trump. Up until that point, Khamenei had been the longest-serving dictator in the world.
Follow The Post’s coverage of the United States’ airstrikes on Iran:
“It’s a very violent regime, one of the most violent regimes in history,” Trump told CNBC’s Joe Kernen about the status of the operation. “We’re doing our job not just for us but for the world. And everything is ahead of schedule.”
“Things are evolving in a very positive way right now, a very positive way.”
The president also warned on Truth Social that if Iran hits the US, “WE WILL HIT THEM WITH A FORCE THAT HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a top Trump ally and staunch proponent of military action in Iran, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that “the goal of this operation is to change the threat, not the regime.”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee claimed that “the president has no plan for any kind of large scale ground force inside of Iran.”
Meanwhile, Trump told The Atlantic that he “agreed to talk” with Iran’s new leadership.
“They should have done it sooner. They should have given what was very practical and easy to do sooner. They waited too long,” he added during a brief interview with the magazine on Sunday.
