What is Task Force Iron Gate? Trump's new plan to choke off Iran's military supply routes

The US military has set up a unit to stop weapons, goods under sanction and other materials reaching Iran by land and across the Caspian Sea. Until now, Washington’s pressure campaign has focused on a naval blockade.

Here is what we know about Task Force Iron Gate:

Central Command (Centcom) chief Adm Brad Cooper ordered Task Force Iron Gate into being on Saturday. The force has about 20 civilian and military staff in Tampa, Florida and will work with other American agencies.

A Centcom graphic says its job is to “monitor, detect and disrupt” the movement of advanced weapons, dual-use technology, sanctioned materials and illegal revenue across Iran's borders and the Caspian.

Centcom, which oversees US military operations across the Middle East, has not announced any closure of Iran's land borders or any American troops along them.

The background

Centcom says the US naval blockade has stopped Iran exporting more than $25 billion in crude oil in recent months. Ports are only one way in, however.

In a report published days before the announcement, Reuters said Iran used a network of military agencies to import at least $2 billion in hardware, explosives and heavy-duty lorries since January 2025, getting around both the blockade and western sanctions.

The goods came by cargo ship across the Caspian from Russia, by lorry from Central Asia and by freight plane from China, the investigation found.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry rejected what it called attempts to link regional hostilities to China. Russia's Defence Ministry, the White House and Centcom did not respond to the report.

What officials have said

Adm Cooper said the task force “reinforces the success of our ironclad blockade against Iran at sea”. He added that working with other agencies would further limit Iran’s ability to finance terrorism, rebuild weapons factories and restock its military.

US President Donald Trump, in a Truth Social post on Sunday, said Iron Gate was in “full force and effect”. He claimed that, together with the blockade, it had shut off almost all trade into and out of Iran.

Michael Mulroy, a former US deputy assistant defence secretary for the Middle East, told Al Jazeera the task force would try to establish where weapons systems are coming in and “how they could potentially be cut off”.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has dismissed the initiative as little more than a change in terminology.

“The ‌Iron Gate ⁠plan is ​merely a wordplay, ​the ‌Americans cannot achieve their ⁠objectives of imposing severe ⁠economic pressure to cause economic collapse in Iran through this approach,” IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohebbi said on Sunday.

Geography

Iran has seven land neighbours: Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Turkey. Centcom did not say on which crossings or countries it would concentrate, though its graphic pointed to Iran's borders with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Turkey.

The Caspian Sea poses a different problem. It is shared with Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan, and gives Iran a sea route that avoids the Arabian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. The US has no established naval presence there and any operation would involve countries with close ties to Russia.

Could it work?

Analysts are sceptical. Iran trades widely across the Middle East, Central Asia and Asia, and its procurement networks use intermediaries, front companies and civilian shipping, which makes it hard to tell where a shipment ends up or what it is for.

Without the co-operation of neighbouring governments, some doubt Washington can keep watch on every channel, or that Iron Gate will do much to Iran's wider economy.

It may still raise the cost and slow the delivery of military components that are difficult to replace. Whether the US will enforce it through sanctions, intelligence sharing, pressure on third countries or physical interdiction has not been made clear.

What remains to be seen is how Iran will respond. It has already stepped up attacks on ships that are using the US-backed southern route to export oil through the Strait of Hormuz. The IRGC navy said on Monday it had taken out navigation systems that halted oil shipments on that route overnight. The claim could not be immediately verified.