The United States Central Command (CENTCOM) has announced that its military forces have neutralised a Gambia-flagged merchant vessel that was attempting to navigate towards an Iranian maritime facility.
In a public dispatch shared on X, CENTCOM revealed that American forces had "observed M/V Lian Star transiting international waters toward an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman and issued more than 20 warnings while informing the vessel it was in violation of the US blockade".
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Despite repeated orders from the American military to halt its trajectory, the ship's crew disregarded the instructions, prompting a direct kinetic response from US aerial assets to halt the vessel's progress.
"A US aircraft disabled the vessel by firing a Hellfire missile into the ship's engine room after Lian Star's crew failed to comply. The ship is no longer transiting to Iran."
