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| President Donald Trump interview with Fox News |
President Donald Trump acknowledged that U.S. forces are having difficulty locating Iranian military installations along the coast of the Strait of Hormuz.
In an interview with Fox News, Trump responded to a question about the United States' ability to target Iranian sites, saying: "As you know, if you look at the Strait of Hormuz, right now, when we look, we have a hard time determining if they have anything here or there."
These statements come at a time when the region is witnessing an unprecedented military escalation, as US forces have carried out several series of attacks on Iranian targets since July 8. The US Central Command claimed that these attacks were in response to Iranian attacks targeting commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, and these attacks coincided with Iranian strikes on US bases in a number of Middle Eastern countries.
When Trump was asked whether the war between the United States and Iran could be considered to have resumed, he replied that it could be interpreted in any way, without giving a definitive answer about the future of military operations or the prospects of escalation or de-escalation.
The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world's most strategic waterways, through which approximately 20% of the world's oil and a third of its liquefied natural gas pass. Past warfare has shown that targeting Iranian coastal facilities requires sophisticated intelligence capabilities, something the US administration seems to acknowledge is difficult at this stage.
