Iran live updates: Trump orders Navy to 'shoot,' 'kill' boats putting mines in strait

President Donald Trump said in a Thursday social media post that he ordered the Navy to "shoot and kill" any boats putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz.

"I have ordered the United States Navy to shoot and kill any boat, small boats though they may be (Their naval ships are ALL, 159 of them, at the bottom of the sea!), that is putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz," Trump wrote.

"There is to be no hesitation. Additionally, our mine 'sweepers' are clearing the Strait right now. I am hereby ordering that activity to continue, but at a tripled up level!" Trump added.

There are currently no U.S. Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz , but there are 17 U.S. Navy ships east of the strait in the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. So far, all of the previous attacks on Iranian mine-laying ships have been from the air.

The president’s post comes a day after the Washington Post reported that a Pentagon assessment found that clearing Iranian mines from the Strait of Hormuz could take as long as six months. 

It is currently unclear if Iranian mine-laying operations remain underway in the Strait amid the ceasefire. The regime previously declared that it had mined a wide swath of the strait off of the coast of Oman. 

-ABC News' Luis Martinez and Nicholas Kerr

Cargo tracking group Vortexa told ABC News it identified 34 sanctioned or Iranian-linked ships moving in and out of the Gulf of Oman through the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports which came into effect on April 13.

Fifteen of those were inbound toward Iran, while 19 were outbound away from Iran.

Of the observed outbound movements, six of the ships were confirmed to be laden with approximately 10.7 million barrels of Iranian crude oil.

However, after Vortexa shared its data and media outlets named three of those ships, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) publicly refuted that the three named ships had evaded the blockade.

CENTCOM said two of those ships -- the Hero II and Hedy -- had returned to an Iranian port, and that the third -- the Dorena -- was "under the escort of a U.S. Navy destroyer in the Indian Ocean after previously attempting to violate the blockade."

It was not immediately clear whether the M/T Majestic X, which the U.S. announced Thursday it had interdicted in the Indian Ocean for carrying oil from Iran, was also one of the ships tracked as having moved through the blockade.

Vortexa said that the blockade is having some effect but, "based on observed vessel activity, flows have continued, although in a more constrained and selective environment."

TankerTrackers.com, a maritime intelligence company that tracks crude oil shipments, told ABC News that they observed nine shipments of Iranian oil pass through the U.S. blockade between April 13 and 20, one of which has been sent back to Iran.

Of the nine shipments, eight were tankers belonging to Iran's National Iranian Tanker Company and one was independently-owned.

-ABC News' Victoria Beaule and Chris Looft

The Pentagon said in a post to X on Thursday that U.S. forces interdicted and boarded the M/T Majestic X tanker in the Indian Ocean overnight, a vessel it said was "transporting oil from Iran" as part of Tehran's illicit oil fleet.

The seizure is the second this week in the Indian Ocean. "We will continue global maritime enforcement to disrupt illicit networks and interdict vessels providing material support to Iran, wherever they operate," the Pentagon said.

-ABC News' Luis Martinez

Hamidreza Hajibabaei, the deputy speaker of Iran's parliament, said Thursday that the first revenues from Iran's new tolls on shipping transiting the Strait of Hormuz have been deposited into the state's central bank account, according to the semi-official Fars News Agency.

"We have control over this Strait," Hajibabaei said, speaking at a public gathering in the western city of Kuhdasht.

"If the United States continues on its current course, no vessels will pass through the Strait of Hormuz," Hajibabaei said. He added, "We are not engaged in negotiations -- rather, we are making demands."

Alireza Salimi, another member of the Iranian parliament, confirmed the deposit of the revenues in an interview with the semi-official Tasnim News Agency on Thursday.

"The amount collected from each ship depends on its cargo and level of risk they pose," Salimi said, as quoted by Tasnim.

"Iran determines how much and how these fees are collected, in other words, we determine the rules," Salimi said.

-ABC News' Somayeh Malekian