war

IRGC says the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed until the US stops blockading Iranian ports.

Top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf says US naval blockade of Iran’s ports is ‘a clumsy and ignorant decision’.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGC) says the Strait of Hormuz is closed and that any ship that attempts to pass through the waterway will be targeted, a dramatic reversal less than 24 hours after the critical shipping lane was reopened.

In a statement carried by Iran’s Student News Agency, the IRGC navy said on Saturday the strait will be closed until the United States lifts its naval blockade on Iranian vessels and ports. It said the blockade was a violation of the ongoing ceasefire agreement in the US-Israel war on Iran.

“We warn that no vessel of any kind should move from its anchorage in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman, and approaching the Strait of Hormuz will be considered cooperation with the enemy, and the offending vessel will be targeted,” it said.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker and a senior negotiator in talks between Washington and Tehran on ending the war, said in a television interview that “the Strait of Hormuz is under the control of the Islamic Republic”.

“The Americans have been declaring a blockade for several days now. This is a clumsy and ignorant decision,” he added.

The reassertion of control came just hours after Iran had briefly reopened the strait, in line with a 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. Oil prices dropped on global markets after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Friday that the waterway was “completely open for all commercial vessels.”

More than a dozen commercial ships passed through the waterway before the IRGC reversed course.

Iranian gunboats reportedly fired on two commercial ships on Saturday, according to United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO). India’s Ministry of External Affairs also said that two Indian-flagged ships were involved in a “shooting incident” in the strait.

Some merchant vessels in the region received radio messages from the IRGC Navy, warning that no ships were being allowed through the strait.

US President Donald Trump said Tehran could not blackmail Washington by closing the waterway and warned that he would put an end to the ceasefire if a deal before its expiry on Wednesday is not reached. Trump added that the naval blockade would “remain in full force”.

Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, meanwhile, said the navy was ready to inflict “new bitter defeats” on its enemies.

‘Two competing blockades’

Al Jazeera correspondent Zein Basravi said that Iran and the US are back where they were the previous day.

“Less than 24 hours ago, world leaders were praising what they thought was a breakthrough in this conflict, hoping Iran was signalling a confidence-building measure by opening the Strait of Hormuz, potentially leading to a ceasefire deal and a permanent end to the war,” he said.

“As disappointed as people may be, this isn’t entirely surprising. What we’re seeing now is a return to square one,” he added, saying there are now “two competing blockades in place”.

Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem, reporting from Tehran, said Iran was using the strait to send a message.

“It’s clear that Iran is dealing with a situation in which they are not sure what’s on the table. So the Strait of Hormuz is once again the only space for engagement, even if it’s a negative engagement. And it’s the space where they are sending and conveying messages to the Americans, showing their leverage,” he said.

Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has described the five permanent members of the UN Security Council as “Lords of War.” He called on them to stop acting like “emperors” and waging war on poorer countries.

Tehran, Iran – United States President Donald Trump’s announcements about securing major concessions from Tehran have riled supporters of the Iranian establishment, prompting rejections and clarifications from the authorities.

Several current and former senior officials, state media and the Islamic Republic’s hardcore backers expressed anger, frustration, and confusion after the US leader made a series of claims, with days left on a two-week ceasefire reached on April 8.

Trump on Friday said Iran and the US would jointly dig up the enriched uranium buried under the rubble of bombed Iranian nuclear sites, and transfer it to the US. He claimed Iran had agreed to stop enriching uranium on its soil.

He also said the Strait of Hormuz had been opened and would never be closed again, while the US naval blockade of Iran’s ports remained in place, and sea mines were removed or were in the process of being removed.

Trump also emphasised that Iran would not receive billions of dollars of its own frozen assets abroad due to US sanctions, and that the 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon was completely unrelated to Iran.

Amid Pakistan’s ongoing efforts to mediate another round of negotiations, Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who led the Iranian delegation to the Islamabad talks earlier this month, rejected all of Trump’s claims.

“With these lies, they did not win the war, and they certainly will not get anywhere in negotiations either,” he posted on X early on Saturday.

By Saturday noon, the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) released a statement, saying the Strait of Hormuz is once again heavily restricted and under “strict management” of the armed forces. It cited continued “acts of piracy and maritime theft under the so-called label of a blockade” by Washington as the reason.

‘Haze of confusion’

In the hours it took between Trump’s flurry of announcements on Friday and official responses from Iranian authorities, supporters of the establishment voiced serious concerns about any major concessions.

“Is there no Muslim out there to talk to the people a bit about what is happening?!” Ezzatollah Zarghami, a former state television chief and current member of the Supreme Cyberspace Council that controls the heavily restricted internet in Iran, wrote on X.

Alireza Zakani, the hardline mayor of Tehran, said if any of Trump’s claims are true, then the Iranian establishment must beware “not to gift the vile enemy in negotiations what it failed to achieve in the field”.

A fan account on X for Saeed Jalili, an ultrahardline member of the Supreme National Security Council who has opposed any deals with the US for decades, said “dissent” may be at play. It said Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen or heard from outside of several written statements attributed to him, must release a voice or video message to confirm what is happening.

Jalili’s main account distanced itself from the comment, saying the fan account – which was subsequently deleted – was a sign of “infiltration” by enemies of Iran who were trying to sow discord.

Iranian state media released another written statement attributed to Khamenei on Saturday to mark Army Day, but made no mention of the political drama unfolding hours earlier, or the negotiations with the US.

The dissonance was clearly on display on state television and other state-linked media on Friday, especially those affiliated with the IRGC.

Multiple state television hosts and analysts harshly attacked Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi because he tweeted on Friday that the Strait of Hormuz was “declared completely open for the remaining period of ceasefire, on the coordinated route as already announced by Ports and Maritime Organisation”.

One of the hosts demanded Araghchi must immediately clarify. Another said the top diplomat’s tweet was in English, and since the Iranian people do not have access to X due to the state-imposed near-total internet shutdown for seven weeks, the message was not directed at the people.

With a huge Hezbollah flag in the background, a furious presenter on state television’s Channel 3 claimed that Araghchi was somehow “the representative of the people of Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq” because they are a part of Iran’s “axis of resistance” of armed forces, so he should demand concessions on their behalf from Trump.

Morteza Mahmoudvand, a representative for Tehran in the Iranian parliament, went as far as saying Araghchi would have been impeached had it not been for “the excuse of war”.

The Fars and Tasnim news sites, which are affiliated with the IRGC, also heavily criticised Araghchi and called for further explanations on Friday evening, with Fars arguing that “Iranian society was plunged into a haze of confusion.”

Armed supporters in the streets

Critical comments from supporters of the Iranian government also flooded social media, including local messaging applications and the comments section of state-run sites.

“We took to the streets every night with clear demands, but you shook hands with the killer of our supreme leader and handed our strait to the Zionists,” one user wrote on Friday in the local app Baleh, in reference to Israel.

“After all these years of sanctions and war and costs imposed on the people, if you are to give up the uranium and the strait, then why did you play with the people’s livelihoods and the blood of the martyrs for so long?” another user wrote.

A large number of analysts and media personalities, including Hossein Shariatmadar, the head of the Kayhan newspaper, who was appointed by late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also voiced criticism and demanded answers on Fars and other outlets.

Regardless of whether there will be more mediated negotiations in Pakistan or whether the war will continue, Iran continues to encourage and arm backers to take to the streets to maintain control.

State media on Friday aired footage of more armed convoys moving through the streets of Tehran while waving the flags of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Iraq’s Hashd al-Shaabi and other groups. The video below shows women and children crewing heavy machineguns mounted on the back of pick-up trucks during a rally in downtown Tehran.

With no end in sight to the state-imposed internet shutdown that has wiped out millions of jobs in Iran, in addition to steel factories and other infrastructure that were destroyed, the Iranian economy continues to suffer.

The timing of the back-and-forth between Trump and the Iranian officials meant that oil prices dropped before Western markets closed on Friday, and the Iranian currency experienced more volatility.

The rial was priced at about 1.46 million against the US dollar on Saturday morning, the first day of the working week in Iran. But it shot back up to about 1.51 million after the IRGC announced the repeated closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

A maritime agency reported that a tanker was fired on by gunboats in the Strait of Hormuz. The United ⁠Kingdom ⁠Maritime Trade Operations agency says it received a report ⁠of a tanker being fired upon by what it ‌said were two gunboats linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. The vessel and ‌its crew were reported safe.

Reports of Iranian gunboats opening fire on a tanker in strait, after Tehran said it is closing the waterway until the US lifts the blockade of its ports.

Iran says it has closed the Strait of Hormuz again, calling the decision a response to a continued blockade of its ports by the United States.

The Iranian military on Saturday said control of the strategic waterway, through which 20 percent of the global oil flows, has “returned to its previous state”, with reports saying Iranian gunboats fired at a merchant vessel as it attempted to ‌cross.

The closure of the strait came hours after it was reopened, with more than a dozen commercial ships passing through the waterway, after a US-mediated 10-day ceasefire deal was reached between Israel and Lebanon.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Saturday said in a statement, cited by the Iranian media, that the ongoing US blockade of Iranian ports represented “acts of piracy and maritime theft”, adding that the control over Hormuz is “under the strict management and control of the armed forces”.

“Until the US restores full freedom of navigation for vessels travelling from Iran to their destinations and back, the status of the Strait of Hormuz will remain tightly controlled and in its previous condition,” it said.

By 10:30 GMT on Saturday, no fewer than eight oil and gas tankers had crossed the strait, but at least as many ships appeared to have turned back, having begun to exit the Gulf, the AFP news agency reported.

The toing and froing over the strait cast doubt on US President Donald Trump’s optimism the day before, that a peace deal to end the US-Israel war on Iran was “very close”.

Trump had celebrated the reopening of the strait on Friday, but warned the US attacks would resume until Iran agreed to a deal, which included its nuclear programme.

“Maybe I won’t extend it,” Trump told reporters on board Air Force One about the temporary ceasefire agreement in place. “So you’ll have a blockade, and unfortunately we’ll have to start dropping bombs again.”

Asked whether a potential deal could be made in this short timeframe, Trump said: “I think it’s going to happen.”

But Iran says no date has been agreed for another round of peace talks, accusing the US of “betraying” diplomacy in all negotiations.

The conflicting and changing reports about the strait and how much freedom ships have to transit through it have deterred many vessels from crossing, according to John-Paul Rodrigue, a maritime shipping specialist at Texas A&M University.

“Ships have been attempting transit since the announcement, but it looks like many of them are heading back because the situation is unclear,” Rodrigue told Al Jazeera. “There is contradictory information being issued by all parties.”

Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi said “uncertainty is the name of the game” as far as the Strait of Hormuz is concerned.

“Iran is looking for a comprehensive end to the war across the region, security assurances, sanctions relief, the unfreezing of frozen assets, regional relations – and on top of all of that – the nuclear dossier and Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium,” he said.

“But right now, uncertainty is the name of the game. The fragile situation makes it hard to talk about the possibility of successful negotiations down the road.”

Michael Shoebridge, Director of Strategic Analysis Australia, says the US may be forced to end its blockade of Iran in order to see the full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

Field Marshal Asim Munir leaves Tehran while premier Shehbaz Sharif heads home from Turkiye amid hopes of another round of US-Iran talks.

Pakistan’s army chief and the prime minister have wrapped up separate diplomatic visits aimed at advancing efforts to end the United States-Iran conflict, with Field Marshal Asim Munir leaving Tehran and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif returning from Turkiye.

Munir met Iran’s leadership and peace negotiators during a three-day visit to Tehran, a Pakistani military statement said on Saturday.

The visit demonstrated Pakistan’s “unwavering resolve to facilitate a negotiated settlement… and to promote peace, stability and prosperity,” the military said ahead of expected US-Iran talks in Islamabad in the coming days.

Munir held talks with the country’s president, foreign minister, parliament speaker and head of Iran’s military central command centre.

Parliament Speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, led the Iranian delegation to Islamabad for peace talks with the US last week, the highest level face-to-face contact between Washington and Tehran in decades.

Those talks ended without agreement, and a ceasefire is due to expire on April 22.

But diplomacy has continued, with Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif, visiting Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkiye to push the peace process.

His three-country trip concluded on Saturday, with Sharif and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar departing a diplomacy forum in Antalya, according to statements from both officials.

“I leave Antalya [Turkish city] with fond memories and a renewed commitment to further strengthening the enduring fraternal bonds between our two nations, and to continuing our close cooperation to advance dialogue and diplomacy for lasting peace and stability in the region,” Sharif posted on X.

The flurry of diplomacy comes as further negotiations are expected in Pakistan in the coming days as Islamabad intensifies contacts with regional and global leaders in an effort to sustain momentum towards a US-Iran deal.

Pressure for a deal between the two countries has grown after Iran reimposed restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz, hours after its reopening following the start of a ceasefire in Lebanon. Tehran accused the US of violating a deal to reopen the strategically important waterway.

Donald Trump has said a second round of talks with Iran could be held in Pakistan in the coming days. The New York Post reported that Trump praised Munir, saying he was “doing a great job”.

Reporting from Islamabad, Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder said Munir landed back home on Saturday as Pakistan prepared for another round of US-Iran talks expected “within the next few days”.

“We have also seen a lot of praise from the Trump administration on social media, praising the Pakistani leadership. So all eyes are on Islamabad. Serious differences remain, but there is a flurry of diplomatic activity and a hope and expectation that some sort of breakthrough may happen,” he said.

He was asked if now is a good time to open an ISA or not

Martin Lewis has offered some advice on how you could organise your savings. He explained the practical tip amid the current uncertainty surrounding the economic impact of the Iran conflict.

The major war has already triggered a surge in oil prices, with fears of long-term consequences for food production and global economic growth.

Mr Lewis was questioned on his BBC podcast about whether now is an opportune moment to open a stocks and shares ISA, given that markets are struggling. When share prices fall, it can present a prime opportunity to invest, as your funds could increase in value when the market bounces back. But if prices decline further, the worth of your holdings could also drop. In response, Mr Lewis outlined the general principle to bear in mind.

He said: “If you’re talking about investing for a long term money that you don’t need for five years and you’re going to do that in a nice spread of investments, like a global tracker fund or an S&P tracker or FTSE tracker, then you just have to accept that you will never know when the perfect time to put money in is.”

£1,000 savings tactic

Nevertheless, he did reveal one strategy you could use to reduce the risk posed by market volatility. Mr Lewis said: “Let’s just imagine you’re putting £10,000 in a stocks and shares ISA, and you’re putting it away for a long time.

“You could put £10,000 in now but you could arrange with the provider that it sits in its cash part. You can hold it in cash, within a stocks and shares ISA, for the moment.

“You could say I’ve got £10,000, over the next 10 months, I’d like you to buy £1,000 a month of that tracker fund that I’m putting my investment into. It’s called pound-cost averaging.

“Because you’re drip feeding the money in, that helps smooth out the short-term volatility of buying at the right moment. So if you’re worried about that volatility, you might want to adopt that tactic.”

Mr Lewis continued in saying that in reality nobody can predict the optimal time to invest. He said: “They are unknowable in the short term, but in a broad spread of investment over the long term, on the balance of probabilities, investing will outperform saving.

“So don’t let the volatility put you off, but you might want to spread the time that you’re putting the money in.”

Major changes to ISA allowances

Savers may also want to note that major changes to ISA allowances are on the horizon. Currently, you can deposit up to £20,000 each tax year, which can be divided as you wish between cash ISAs and stocks and shares ISAs.

From April 2027, you will only be permitted to save up to £12,000 as you choose. The remaining £8,000 will only be available for deposits into investment-based accounts.

Savers aged 65 and over will be exempt from the new regulations, retaining the existing £20,000 allowance. ISAs are entirely tax-free, with no tax liability on any interest earnings or investment gains within these accounts.