Strait of Hormuz restrictions tighten; IDF issues fresh evacuation order for Arak; Trump's oil tanker claims disputed
Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps issued a direct warning on Friday to civilian populations across West Asia, calling on them to immediately distance themselves from locations hosting American military forces, as the now four-week-old conflict between Iran and the US-Israeli axis showed no signs of abatement and stretched across an expanding theatre of operations.
The statement, framed as a public advisory rather than a military communiqué, accused US and Israeli forces of deliberately sheltering behind civilian infrastructure. "The cowardly American-Zionist forces, who lack the courage and ability to defend their own military bases, are trying to use innocent civilians as human shields out of fear of the fighters of Islam," the IRGC said, warning that "since it is our duty to eliminate the US and Israeli forces, who recklessly kill Iranian civilians and target prominent figures, wherever we find them," regional residents should "immediately leave areas where US forces are stationed to avoid harm." ANI News
The warning came as the IRGC simultaneously announced the latest wave of Operation True Promise 4 — its rolling retaliatory campaign against US and Israeli military positions across the region. Drone and missile strikes have been targeting key American and Israeli military installations across the region ANI News, with the operation now well into its eighth decade of successive waves since launching on 28 February.
A War of Attrition at Scale
The scale of the Iranian campaign has been considerable in declaration if contested in effect. The IRGC reported a total of 220 coordinated operations across allied groups, including 87 operations by Hezbollah in Lebanon, 23 by Iraqi resistance groups, and 110 drone and missile operations by Iranian armed forces. WANA Earlier waves claimed strikes on targets ranging from Tel Aviv, Haifa and Be'er Sheva to US military installations in Kuwait, Jordan, and Bahrain, including Ali al-Salem, Arifjan, al-Azraq and Sheikh Isa bases. GTV News HD
The conflict was triggered by the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in an Israeli airstrike on 28 February, along with Iran's defence minister and several IRGC generals, in what was described as the largest aerial attack ever launched by the Israeli Air Force. Wikipedia US and Israeli forces subsequently launched Operations Roaring Lion and Epic Fury — a combined campaign that has involved extensive aerial bombardment of military and civilian infrastructure across Iran.
On the Israeli side, the military has maintained its own escalatory tempo. IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin stated that the military has struck more than 1,000 targets in Iran's weapons production industries, including missile factories, drone facilities, and sub-contractor sites, vowing the eliminations would not stop. The Times of Israel
Arak Next in IDF's Crosshairs
Friday brought a fresh IDF evacuation order for central Iran. The Israeli military issued an urgent warning to residents of the northwest of the city of Arak and those in the Kheirabad industrial area, saying it would operate in the region "in the coming hours" to strike what it described as military infrastructure of the Iranian regime. "For your safety and well-being, we ask that you immediately leave the area indicated on the map," the IDF's Persian-language spokesman, Lt. Col. Kamal Penhasi, said. The Times of Israel Arak is home to significant defence and industrial infrastructure, and its IR-40 reactor complex has previously been a target in prior rounds of the conflict.
Hormuz: Selective Passage, Disputed Claims
A parallel confrontation is playing out at the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most critical oil chokepoint. Iran's IRGC said it had turned back three vessels attempting to transit the Strait on Friday morning. "Three container ships of different nationalities attempted to proceed towards the designated corridor for authorised vessels. They were turned back after a warning from the IRGC Navy," the IRGC statement said, adding that "the Strait of Hormuz is closed and that any transit through it will be met with a firm response."
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi clarified Tehran's position, indicating the closure is selective rather than total — with passage permitted for vessels from countries including China, Russia, Pakistan, Iraq, and India. The strait, in Tehran's framing, "is not completely closed but closed to enemies."
Against this backdrop, claims made by US President Donald Trump at a White House cabinet meeting on Wednesday attracted scrutiny. Trump asserted that Iran had allowed "ten boats of oil" — which he characterised as a diplomatic "present" — to pass through the strait. BBC Verify's cross-referencing of publicly available ship-tracking data covering 23–25 March identified only five vessels carrying oil through the Strait during that window, none of them Pakistan-flagged as Trump had suggested. Five additional vessels transited without oil cargo. The discrepancy leaves Trump's characterisation unverified.
Diplomatic Signals Amid the Strikes
Trump announced a ten-day pause on threatened strikes against Iranian energy infrastructure, extending the deadline to 6 April, citing ongoing talks he described as going "very well." NPR The pause drew immediate criticism from international human rights experts and UN officials, who had already flagged threats against Iran's power generation facilities as a potential war crime.
Reports citing Axios and Israel's Channel 12 suggest that Turkey, Egypt, and Pakistan are now actively mediating between Washington and Tehran Pravda Turkey — a configuration that reflects the regional realignment underway as the conflict enters its second month with no ceasefire in sight.
The IRGC's warning to civilian populations on Friday, whatever its military calculus, signals that Tehran intends to press its campaign outward — projecting risk across the region's geography and putting pressure on governments hosting American forces to reconsider the costs of that hospitality.