U.S. Central Command announced Saturday it is standing up a new unit called Task Force Iron Gate, extending its existing naval blockade of Iran beyond the water and onto overland smuggling routes and the Caspian Sea.

CENTCOM described the roughly 20-person task force, based in Florida and made up of civilian and military personnel, as targeting the movement of advanced weapons, dual-use technology, sanctioned materials and illegal revenue streams across Iran's land borders, according to CBS News's live coverage of the announcement. CENTCOM chief Adm. Brad Cooper said the new unit "reinforces the success of our ironclad blockade against Iran at sea."

The announcement did not spell out exactly how the task force would operate on the ground or whether U.S. personnel would use military force to interdict overland shipments. CBS News said it had asked the White House whether American assets would actually operate inside the Caspian Sea, a body of water bordered by Iran, Russia and three Central Asian states, and had not received an answer as of Saturday's update.

A Blockade Already Months Old

The expansion builds on a naval blockade of Iranian ports that the U.S. first imposed in April and has enforced on and off since, following the collapse of nuclear talks and a brief U.S.-Iran air war earlier this year. CENTCOM said Saturday that the blockade has redirected 144 commercial vessels through the end of October and kept roughly $25 billion worth of Iranian crude oil off the market.

REINFORCES THE SUCCESS OF OUR IRONCLAD BLOCKADE AGAINST IRAN AT SEA

That was Adm. Cooper's characterization of the existing operation, which CENTCOM says it is now building on rather than replacing.

In a sign the sea blockade is still actively being tested, CENTCOM said separately that U.S. aircraft disabled the commercial vessel M/V Huda in the Gulf of Oman on Saturday after its crew repeatedly tried to breach the blockade. The agency did not detail the vessel's cargo or ownership, or specify what "disabled" involved.

The moves come as the Trump administration simultaneously says it is pursuing a peace deal with Tehran, with gas-price forecasters citing hopes for a U.S.-Iran agreement as one reason American pump prices have been easing toward $4 a gallon. Whether a widening blockade and renewed diplomacy can coexist — or whether Iron Gate signals Washington is digging in for a longer standoff — is likely to become clearer as the task force's first operations play out in the coming weeks.