DUBAI/ISLAMABAD, April 24 -- Iran sho-wed off its tightened grip over the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday with video of its commandos storming a huge cargo ship, after the collapse of peace talks that Washington had hoped would open the world's most important shipping corridor. State television broadcast footage overnight of masked troops pulling up in a grey speedboat alongside the MSC Francesca, climbing a rope ladder to a shell door in the hull and jumping through brandishing rifles. The footage, presented with an action-movie-style soundtrack and no commentary, also included views of another ship, the Epaminondas. Iran claimed to have captured both on Wednesday, accusing them of trying to cross the strait without permits. The vice speaker of parliament, Hamidreza Hajibabaei, said the first revenue from a toll that Iran was now collecting from ships using the strait had been transferred to the central bank's account. He gave no further detail about who had paid it, when or how much. Iran's judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei said the merchant vessels attacked in the strait had "faced the law". Iranian speedboats and marine drones were sheltering in sea caves off an island near the mouth of the strait and keeping the US Navy from approaching. Pakistan, which hosted the only peace talks of the war earlier this month and had been preparing to host a second round before it was called off on Tuesday, was still in touch with both sides, a Pakistani government source said. The Pakistani source said Iranian officials were still declining to commit to sending a delegation, citing the US blockade and other reasons. "Yesterday, diplomats from various countries met different Pakistani authorities and asked about the expected dates for the next round of talks, but they could not give them any timeframe, clearly," the Pakistani source said. Iran has said publicly it is willing to talk in principle but that the US blockade and inconsistent demands from Washington made it impossible to commit. The US delegation led by Vice President JD Vance never left Washington. "You did not achieve your goals through military aggression and you will not achieve them by bullying either," the head of Iran's negotiating team, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, wrote on social media on Wednesday. "The only way is recognising the Iranian people's rights." The US was separately due to host a second round of talks between Israel and Lebanon on Thursday, with Lebanon seeking an extension of a ceasefire reached last week in a war that has run in parallel to the Iran war....