Iran would retaliate against any oil company unloading Iranian oil from a seized tanker, a senior commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards' navy said on Thursday.
State media cited the Guards' navy commander Alireza Tangsiri as saying that Tehran would hold Washington responsible for allowing the unloading of the tanker's content.
In April, the US confiscated Iranian oil on a tanker at sea in a sanctions enforcement operation.
Sources familiar with the matter, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue, had said Washington took control of the oil cargo aboard the Marshall Islands tanker Suez Rajan after securing an earlier court order, Reuters reported.
The ship tracking data showed that the tanker's last reported position was near southern Africa on April 22.
On Monday, the US announced it would send additional F-35 and F-16 fighter jets, along with a warship to the Middle East, in a bid to monitor key waterways in the region following Iran's seizure and harassment of commercial shipping vessels in recent months.