An AFP account carried by RTHK adds two strands this feed has not yet reported: a widening US financial-pressure campaign and a sharper political claim about who controls the strait.

On the economic front, the US Treasury on Friday announced sanctions on a Turkish bank over alleged IRGC ties, following a step last week toward cutting a major Egyptian bank's UAE operations off from the US financial system. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has set out plans for the "economic asphyxiation" of Iran, warning of consequences for countries that do not join the campaign [1]. The report frames this as running alongside, not instead of, the military track: CENTCOM says it permanently disabled M/T Downy off Kharg Island and M/T Stark 1 near Jask and destroyed the unladen M/T Kylo in the Gulf of Oman after what it called failed Iranian missile attacks on a carrier and a destroyer — ground already covered here, restated with Adm. Brad Cooper's "three of yours for two of ours" framing [1].

The political claim is new and bears directly on the contested flow numbers. Vance said on Thursday that Iran's "control over the Strait of Hormuz is effectively gone," and the administration has begun pushing the message that oil flows through the waterway are returning to prewar levels, with Trump calling the six-month war "small potatoes" and Vance saying he "wouldn't call it a war" [1]. That sits against the Kpler count of roughly 2.3 million b/d of crude in August versus 15.82 million b/d before February, and the Gulf News estimate of about two-thirds of pre-war volumes. The scale of any recovery remains contested, and Vance's assertion is a claim, not a measurement.

Also new: Iranian Security Chief Mohsen Rezaei says Tehran has adopted a "new strategy" that "will shatter your foundations" [1]. Iranian state TV reported one Jask tanker was empty and the second laden, crews taken ashore by lifeboat, and no casualties at Kharg [1]. The IRGC's claim to have struck six vessels remains uncorroborated, and UKMTO had no reports of civilian tankers targeted in the strait [1].