By Audrey Courty, ABC News
Iran is tightening its grip on the Strait of Hormuz by asserting unprecedented control over one of the world's most strategically important shipping lanes through a new transit regime.
Just days after launching the so-called Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA), Iran published a map on X declaring a vast "controlled maritime zone" across the waterway and warning ships that they would need Iranian authorisation to pass through it.
The zone stretches from Kuh-e Mubarak in Iran to south of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates, at the eastern entrance of the strait, and from the tip of Qeshm Island to Umm al-Quwain at the western entrance.
A map of the Strait of Hormuz showing the areas under the oversight of the Iranian armed forces, according to the so-called Persian Gulf Strait Authority.
