IRGC commander claims US forces pulled back from Iran

Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Ali Fadavi said US forces had moved more than 1,000 kilometers from Iran’s borders and that US vessels were absent from several nearby waters, claims not independently confirmed in the supplied accounts. His remarks underscore competing assertions over military presence and control of the Strait of Hormuz, a key route for global energy shipments. In a televised interview, Fadavi said US vessels were not present in the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, the Sea of Oman or the northern Indian Ocean. He attributed the claimed pullback to Iran’s military strength and said US warships were vulnerable to Iranian attacks. The reports offered no independent evidence establishing the location of US forces or ships. Fadavi also said Iran controlled the strait and that only three to four million barrels of oil per day were moving through a US-supervised route, a volume he described as negligible. The period and route boundaries behind that estimate were not specified. Another account cited a separate estimate of 13.