US launches task force to tighten pressure on Iran

US Central Command on Saturday announced the formation of a 20-member team to expand on a US naval blockade of Iranian ports during the eight-month war. — AFP pic

First Published: Monday, 09 Nov 2026 11:57 AM MYT

WASHINGTON, Nov 9 — President Donald Trump said Sunday that a new task force is in place to disrupt land routes into Iran that the US military says are used for shipments of weapons and illicit materials.

US Central Command on Saturday announced the formation of a 20-member team to expand on a US naval blockade of Iranian ports during the eight-month war.

“Task Force Iron Gate is in full force and effect in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Coupled with history’s greatest Naval Blockade, very little gets into, or out of, Iran!” the president posted on his Truth Social platform.

CENTCOM chief Admiral Brad Cooper said in Saturday’s statement that the force “will further constrain Iran’s ability to finance terrorism, rebuild weapons factories, and replenish their military.”

The team of both civilian and military personnel based in Florida would coordinate with US government agencies on “preventing the movement of advanced weapons systems, dual-use technologies, sanctioned materials, and illegal revenue streams across Iran’s land borders and the Caspian Sea,” the statement added.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Washington’s latest bid “will fail” and will not bring about economic collapse in the Islamic republic.

“The United States will never be able to impose the economic blockade it is pursuing and proposing under various names and through different plans,” Guards spokesman Hossein Mohebi said, according to Fars news agency.

“The Americans will not achieve their objective of exerting extreme economic pressure to bring about the collapse and disintegration of Iran’s economy.”

Mohebi added that the United States would be “powerless to block” communication channels between Iran and neighboring countries.

CENTCOM said that the naval blockade on Iranian ports had “prevented Iran from exporting more than $25 billion in crude oil.”

In August, Washington announced what it called an “economic asphyxiation” campaign on Iran aimed at strangling its already battered economy.

Those measures were in response to Tehran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a key conduit for global oil supplies, where Iranian forces have regularly targeted vessels that attempted to cross without authorisation. — AFP