Global shipping froze in shock as Iran tried to make good on its darkest threat: closing the Strait of Hormuz. At dawn, satellite feeds and commercial tankers reported a sudden wall of danger — 300 naval mines sown across key lanes and 50 fast‑attack boats fanning out with rockets and anti‑ship missiles, broadcasting that “no foreign warship will pass.”

Within minutes, the U.S. Fifth Fleet snapped into wartime posture. A carrier strike group surged forward as mine‑hunter ships, drones and helicopters raced to carve a narrow safe corridor. Overhead, P‑8 patrol aircraft mapped mine lines in real time, while electronic‑warfare jets blinded Iranian radars guiding the swarm of speedboats.

The first clash came fast. Attack boats closed to within a mile of a U.S. destroyer before being met with precision naval gunfire, armed drones and helicopter‑launched missiles. Several craft were disabled or sunk; the rest scattered back toward Iran’s coast under a blanket of U.S. jamming. Behind that shield, mine‑clearance teams detonated or neutralized dozens of mines, marking a single‑file channel with emergency buoys.

Just six hours after Tehran boasted the chokepoint was “sealed,” the first convoy of tankers and cargo ships crept through under U.S. escort — proof to jittery markets that oil would still flow, at least for now. But as smoke drifts over the world’s most vital waterway, one reality is stark: the line between economic pressure and full‑scale war has never been thinner.