Report: U.S. sent secret warning to ayatollah

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration warned Iran’s supreme political-religious authority closing the Strait of Hormuz would trigger a U.S. response, U.S. officials said.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in 2011. / AFP

The administration, using a secret communications channel officials would not describe, warned Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that closing the narrow, strategically important strait between the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf would be considered crossing a “red line” that would not be tolerated, the officials told The New York Times.

The officials would not say if Khamenei or any other Iranian official had replied to the unusual contact between the two countries, the Times said.

Senior Obama administration officials have publicly said Iran would cross a red line if it made good on recent threats to close the strait, which 16 million barrels of oil — about a fifth of the world’s daily oil trade — flow through every day.

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