Iran's Revolutionary Guards have dismissed a new US military task force aimed at choking off its supply routes, calling the plan merely a play on words. IRGC spokesman Brigadier General Hossein Mohebbi told the semi-official Fars news agency on Sunday that Washington could not achieve its aim of imposing severe economic pressure and causing Iran's economy to collapse through the initiative, Reuters reported.

US Central Command announced Task Force Iron Gate on Saturday. The roughly 20-strong team of civilian and military personnel, based in Tampa, Florida, is tasked with tracking and disrupting the movement of advanced weapons, dual-use technology, sanctioned materials and illicit funds across Iran's land borders and the Caspian Sea. CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper said it would reinforce what he described as the success of the US naval blockade of Iran.

Mohebbi said Iran had made preparations for further economic pressure and maintained close communication with neighbouring countries, arguing the United States would be powerless to cut those channels. He also warned of a harsher response if US forces attacked Iranian vessels, saying the war continued on both military and economic fronts.

The exchange came a day after the US said its air force had disabled a commercial vessel in the Gulf of Oman as it tried to pass through the blockade. The United States has enforced a naval blockade on Iranian ports since April, while Iran has restricted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway through which about a fifth of the world's traded oil and gas passed before the war.