Iran: US wants to block land routes to Iran

The US military has announced plans to create a task force to block land routes to Iran, where it says illegal weapons and goods are being transported.

The United States, which already imposes heavy economic sanctions on Iran, is also subjecting Iranian ports to a maritime blockade as part of the war between them and Iran, triggered in February by Israeli-American strikes on the country.

The group's work "will further limit Iran's ability to finance terrorism, rebuild weapons factories and resupply its armed forces," said Brad Cooper, the head of the US military's Middle East Command (Centcom) in a statement published Saturday on X.

Comprised of 20 civilian and military members, this Florida-based team will work with government agencies to “prevent the transit of advanced weapons systems, dual-use technologies, sanctioned materials and illegal revenue flows across Iran's land borders and the Caspian Sea,” the statement added.

The spokesperson for the Revolutionary Guards, Iran's powerful armed force, assured that such a project would "fail" and would not cause the "collapse" of the Iranian economy.

“The United States will never succeed in imposing the economic blockade that it seeks to implement (...) under various names and through different plans,” declared Hossein Mohebi, quoted by the Fars news agency.

The United States is “incapable of blocking” the lines of communication between Iran and its neighbors, he assured.

According to Centcom, the US blockade of Iranian ports has “prevented Iran from exporting more than $25 billion worth of crude oil.”

In August, Washington announced that it was aiming to “asphyxiate” the Iranian economy, already bloodless, in response to Iran's blockade of the strategic Strait of Hormuz, where it regularly attacks ships attempting to cross it without its authorization.