Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy says it has seized two vessels near Farsi Island allegedly carrying large quantities of smuggled fuel, the country's Students' News Agency (ISNA) reported Thursday - at a moment the nation's military has its "finger on the trigger" amid threats from the Trump White House and Israel.
More than one million liters of diesel were discovered aboard the ships, according to the IRGC Navy's public relations office, and the seized 15 foreign crew members have been handed over to judicial authorities.
ISNA reported that the vessels were part of a fuel-smuggling network that had been operating for months and were intercepted following "monitoring, intelligence work, and IRGC naval operations."
While the interdiction against the alleged fuel smuggling vessels is significant, Thursday's incident is somewhat more common and less alarming that if it had been a international oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, for example.
Still, Tehran is using it to send a warning to any external power acting menacingly in its regional waters. Ezzatollah Zarghami, a former minister and ex-head of Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB, later on Thursday issued a blunt warning, declaring that "the Strait of Hormuz will be the place of massacre and hell."
"I am sure that the Strait of Hormuz will be the place of massacre and hell for the US," Zarghami said. "Iran will show that the Strait of Hormuz has historically belonged to Iran. The only thing the Americans can think of is playing with their vessels and moving them from one place to another."
With seizures at sea now paired with explicit threats, tensions around one of the world's most critical energy chokepoints - which the IRGC has frequently threatened it could block off altogether - continue to climb.
This especially as Tehran is warning that it is ready to strike back hard if attacked by the United States, even if this means all-out war. It says its military forces and ballistic missiles are on high alert, and also that Tel Aviv will be again targeted in the event of US aggression.
Israel meanwhile is said to be lobbying Washington for regime change in Tehran, but the White House reportedly isn't ready for such a drastic option - also amid reports the Pentagon would need more time to put assets in place.
There is an IRGC Navy base on the tiny, strategically located island, which has been used to launch IRGC speedboats to at times intercept foreign vessels.
In a Wednesday interview President Trump said Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei should be "very worried" at the growing Pentagon presence in the region.
"I would say he should be very worried, yeah. He should be," Trump said in reaction to an Iran question by Tom Llamas on NBC Nightly News.