SENIOR spokesman for Iran’s armed forces Abolfazl Shekarchi rejected a claim by US Central Command (CENTCOM) that US forces had supported the transport of over 1 billion barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz “in the last couple of months.” In a statement carried by Iranian media, Shekarchi described the claim, made earlier in the day by CENTCOMCommander Admiral Brad Cooper, as “false and ridiculous.”

 

He added that Cooper’s remarks constituted a“projection and a failed psychological operation to boost the morale of the terrorist US Army’s exhausted and worn-out forces in the region and justify the exorbitant financial costs and casualties incurred by the United States in the region,” Xinhua news agency reported.