Middle East crisis live: US says nearly 2,000 targets hit in Iran war; Iran insists it has ‘complete control’ of Strait of Hormuz

00.13 EST Conflicting claims over the strait of Hormuz Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Wednesday they control the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route for oil and gas, and any vessels seeking to pass through the waterway risk damage from missiles or stray drones, Agence France-Presse reports. “Currently, the Strait of Hormuz is under the complete control of the Islamic Republic’s Navy,” said Guards Navy official Mohammad Akbarzadeh in a statement issued on Fars news agency. However, Admiral Brad Cooper of US Central Command contradicted Iran’s claim , saying just hours earlier that the US was sinking “all of the Iranian navy” and had already destroyed 17 Iranian ships. “For decades the Iranian regime has harassed international shipping. Today there is not a single Iranian ship underway in the Arabian gulf, Strait of Hormuz or Gulf of Oman, ” he said. The US navy could begin escorting oil tankers through the strait of Hormuz if necessary, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday, in one of the administration’s most aggressive steps yet to attempt to contain soaring energy prices sparked by the war. In his briefing, Admiral Cooper also said that the number of strikes carried out on Saturday in the first 24 hours of its war on Iran was nearly double that of the “shock-and-awe” strikes on Iraq in 2003, and that nearly 2,000 targets had been hit so far in Iran.