On Camera: US War Planes Attack Iranian Targets To Reopen Hormuz

The United States and its allies have stepped up efforts to release the Strait of Hormuz from Iran's chokehold amid intensifying war in the Middle East. The Pentagon has sent heavily armed A-10 warplanes, known as the Warthog, over the sea lanes to attack Iranian naval vessels and Apache helicopters to shoot down Iran's deadly drones, the American army has said.

The US Central Command posted a combat video showing US forces destroying Iranian naval targets in and near the critically important water passage through which about 20 per cent of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) transits.

Inside US' War Plan

The sudden boost in the battle is reportedly part of the Pentagon's multistage plan to tackle the threat of Iranian armed boats, mines and cruise missiles, which have blocked commercial shipping since early March after the US and Iran launched a war on the Islamic Republic.

The US wants to contain the Iranian threats in the waterways so that it can send US warships to escort vessels in and out of the Persian Gulf. But, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. It will likely take weeks for American forces to clear out Iran's web of assets that have harassed traffic through a chokepoint.

The Strait's effective closure has sent oil prices soaring above $100 a barrel, forcing the Donald Trump administration in the US to grapple with the economic implications of the war it launched alongside Israel on February 28.

What the US Military Said

Talking about the US military objectives, General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, "We continue to hunt and kill mine storage facilities and naval ammunition depots. We continue to hunt and kill afloat assets, including more than 120 vessels and 44 mine layers, and the pressure will continue."

He further said that the A-10 Warthog has also been deployed along with AH-64 Apaches to "hunt and kill" Iranian vessels in the Straits of Hormuz.

"The A-10 Warthog is now engaged across the southern flank, targeting fast-attack watercraft in the Strait of Hormuz," he said, adding that the Apaches "have joined the fight on the southern flank.''

The official said some US allies were also using Apaches to "handle one-way attack drones"-- one of Iran's most effective weapons, which it used to attack neighbouring Arab states and hit energy infrastructure across the Persian Gulf. He did not name the allies using the tech.

How Long Will It Take To Destroy Iranian Assets?

Despite a nearly three-week-long US-Israeli campaign, Tehran is still believed to have a vast stockpile of mines, cruise missiles on trucks, and hundreds of undamaged boats in hidden facilities with deeply dug tunnels along the coast and on islands, Farzin Nadimi, an expert on Iranian defences at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told The Wall Street Journal.

"I think it will take weeks to reach a point where there can be safe operations in the strait... Even then, a lot of the Iranian assets will survive," he said.

Moreover, the extent to which Iran has seeded naval mines in the strait is also unclear. The Strait of Hormuz, at its narrowest point, is only 24 miles wide. In such a confined space, missiles can be fired from hundreds of miles away and still hit ships moving through it, said Michael Connell, an Iran analyst at the Centre for Naval Analyses, a Washington think tank.

He noted that lowering the threat to the point where ships can resume transiting the strait is "doable, but it takes time, and you are probably never going to get to 100 per cent.

"We could reach a stage where we're getting ships through, and they could still get a lucky shot."