Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei Vows to Close Strait of Hormuz, Keep Attacking Gulf Neighbors

Iran’s newly appointed supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, used his first public statement — read on state television — to vow continued pressure on the United States and its regional allies by keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed and sustaining attacks on Gulf neighbours.

“AP’s earlier story follows below”

Associated Press

AP reporting noted that “Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei says that the leverage of closing the Strait of Hormuz should be used.

Associated Press

NewsNation similarly reported that Khamenei “has vowed to continue blocking the Strait of Hormuz” and quoted him saying “the leverage of blocking the Strait of Hormuz must certainly continue to be used.”

Baird Maritime summarized the defiant tone: “Iran will avenge the blood of its martyrs, keep the Strait of Hormuz closed and attack US bases, new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said on Thursday,”

WRAL reported that he “issued his first statement on the war on Thursday, saying Iran should close the Strait of Hormuz and keep attacking its Gulf Arab neighbors as leverage.”

Khamenei explicitly linked his rhetoric to a deadly strike on a girls’ elementary school, invoking that incident as justification for retaliation and referencing findings that point to U.S. responsibility.

The New York Times recorded his vow that “We will not refrain from avenging the blood of your martyrs,” and noted he “referred specifically to a strike on a girls’ elementary school in Minab in southern Iran, which an ongoing U.S. military investigation has determined the United States was responsible for.”

Associated Press News

NewsNation reported the same U.S. preliminary finding, saying an ongoing military probe “found that the U.S. was responsible for a deadly Tomahawk missile strike on an all-girls Iranian elementary school” that “killed at least 175 people, most of them children.”

WRAL and Ottumwa Courier also flagged the school strike as part of the context for his remarks and Iran’s pledge of revenge.

Beyond threats to the strait, Khamenei suggested Iran had contemplated broader military options and urged regional actors to curb cooperation with the United States, while also demanding U.S. bases be closed.

“Iran will avenge the blood of its martyrs, keep the Strait of Hormuz closed and attack US bases, new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said on Thursday in a statement read out on state television, his first remarks since succeeding his slain father”

Baird Maritime

The New York Times reported that Iran “has studied the possibility of ‘opening other fronts in areas where the enemy has little experience and would be highly vulnerable,’” and quoted Khamenei warning neighbours to “sharply curtail their military cooperation with the United States.”

WRAL recorded his call for people in Gulf countries to “shut down” U.S. bases and to recognise that American protection had been “nothing more than a lie.”

Baird Maritime added that Khamenei said “the United States must close all its bases in the region.”

The Associated Press and Independent Tribune detailed the widening pattern of Iranian strikes across the Gulf and attacks on shipping and ports that underpin the leverage he described.

Khamenei’s remarks have immediate economic and humanitarian reverberations: attacks on shipping and the threat to the Hormuz chokepoint sent oil prices sharply higher, while the wider regional war has produced large-scale displacement and civilian casualties.

NewsNation and CNN noted oil jumped — with Brent briefly climbing “above $100” and then easing into the mid-90s — after Iran signalled the strait would remain closed.

CNN

Baird Maritime and the Associated Press documented ships and tankers set ablaze and ports disrupted, with one report noting two tankers were “ablaze in an Iraqi port” after suspected Iranian explosive-laden boats struck them.

CNN and WRAL also highlighted massive displacement in Lebanon and Iran, and UN and Lebanese health figures cited in those sources put displaced numbers and deaths in the hundreds of thousands.

The delivery and public form of Khamenei’s address — read on state television without him appearing — and questions about his personal status added another layer to the story, with intelligence and media reports suggesting he may have been wounded and that his family suffered casualties in the opening strikes.

“Firefighters in Bahrain worked to extinguish an oil tanker fire on Thursday on Muharraq Island near the nation's International Airport”

Independent Tribune

CNN described the religious title and the effort to elevate him, explaining that “the title has also taken on heightened political significance” as state-linked institutions boosted his standing,

Independent Tribune

WRAL reported he “did not appear on camera” and that Israeli intelligence assessed he “was likely wounded in the war,” with family members killed in the initial strikes.

The New York Times quoted analysts saying his tone was unusually direct about military strategy, and the Canberra Times and Ottumwa Courier repeated that he didn’t appear on camera and was said to have been wounded.