Tankers burn in Hormuz as Iran targets ships using the US-backed southern lane

Iran says at least four tankers have hit mines and caught fire in the Strait of Hormuz since Thursday, Oct. 29, and a British maritime agency has confirmed separate attacks on ships leaving the strait, as Tehran and Washington fight over which shipping lanes vessels are allowed to use.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard navy said Friday that a supertanker carrying more than 2 million barrels of oil had been left burning at the mouth of the strait after hitting a mine while using what it called an unauthorized route. The Guard said it was the third tanker to catch fire that day, Iran International reported. Later on Friday, it claimed a fourth, saying another tanker had hit a mine while trying to leave through the southern route, according to the Anadolu news agency as carried by Bernama.

None of the Iranian claims has been independently confirmed. The ships’ names and flags have not been released.

What the monitors have confirmed

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center, which tracks attacks on commercial shipping for the British navy, has confirmed separate incidents of its own.

On Thursday evening, UKMTO said a tanker leaving the strait along the southern route was struck by a projectile. No injuries or environmental damage were reported, CBS News reported. It was not clear whether that ship was one of the vessels Iran said had hit mines.

In another advisory, UKMTO said a small boat had attached two explosive devices to the hull of an outbound tanker. The blasts started a fire in the engine room and briefly disabled the ship. The crew is safe, according to Al Jazeera.

By Friday, UKMTO said a fire on one of the damaged tankers had been put out, with all crew accounted for and no pollution reported, Euronews reported. Oman’s navy separately said it rescued 25 crew members from a vessel it described as targeted about 196 kilometers, or roughly 122 miles, off its Musandam peninsula, which borders the strait. Ship-tracking site MarineTraffic lists the vessel, the RITI, as a crude oil tanker, AFP reported.

UKMTO also reported a vessel struck by an unidentified projectile about 40 nautical miles south of Iran’s Lavan Island on Friday evening.

Two navies, two maps

The fight is now about routes as much as weapons.

Iran says commercial ships must use northern lanes that its forces authorize and control. The United States has encouraged shipping companies to use a southern passage instead, closer to Oman. Every tanker Iran says hit a mine in the last two days was, by Iran’s account, on a route Tehran considers illegal.

The Guard and Iran’s regular navy, a separate force, made overlapping claims. Iran’s regular military said a tanker caught fire in the eastern part of the strait on Thursday. The Guard said Friday that two more tankers were stopped and set alight in the eastern and western sections, and separately announced the supertanker fire.

U.S. Central Command has rejected Iran’s version of events at sea. Its commander, Adm. Brad Cooper, has repeated that Iran’s navy has been destroyed and that the strait’s main shipping lanes have been cleared of Iranian mines, according to Euronews and CBS News. U.S. forces remain in the area to keep all primary transit routes through the strait free and clear, a U.S. military spokesman said Friday, according to AFP.

Tehran is not backing down. An Iranian army spokesman, Mohammad Akraminia, said Thursday that the strait is under the strategic control of Iran’s armed forces and “will never be reopened until the Islamic Republic’s conditions are fully met,” according to Iran International.

Iranian sources also claimed Friday that an American unmanned surface vessel had been destroyed in the eastern strait. The U.S. military has not confirmed any loss.

How the strait got here

Shipping through Hormuz has been badly disrupted since the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran on Feb. 28. A ceasefire deal in June briefly reopened the waterway, but it collapsed in July, and the United States reinstated its naval blockade of Iranian ports.

That blockade is now in its fourth month. U.S. Central Command said last week it has kept roughly $25 billion in Iranian crude off the market, CBS News reported. Iran’s response has been to make passage for everyone else dangerous, claiming the right to decide who goes through.

The human cost of the war for U.S. forces is also rising. The Pentagon’s casualty system now lists 23 U.S. service members who have died since the war began, 11 of them killed by enemy fire, according to CBS News.

The violence is not limited to the strait. The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said Friday that it intercepted a Houthi drone over the Mecca region. The Houthis denied launching it, saying they only target Saudi oil facilities and military bases, CBS News reported.

What it means for talks and strikes

The tanker attacks came as Qatari mediators returned to Tehran on Friday with a revised draft deal to end the war. Tehran has said it will not reopen the strait until the United States lifts its blockade, eases oil sanctions and releases frozen Iranian assets.

Washington has kept military pressure on. U.S. officials have told several Middle East governments to prepare for possible renewed strikes on Iran after the Nov. 3 midterm elections, and for Iranian retaliation against energy sites, two diplomats told The Associated Press. The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and amphibious ships carrying about 9,000 troops in all were sent toward the Persian Gulf late last month.

Any new campaign would likely put the southern lane, the one Iran is now targeting, at the center of U.S. naval operations. Our earlier coverage explains what the war has cost Washington so far.

What we don’t know yet

The names, flags and owners of the tankers Iran says were hit, and whether their crews are safe.
Whether the ships were struck by mines, as Iran says, or by other weapons, as UKMTO’s reports suggest in at least one case.
How much oil, if any, has leaked from the burning supertanker.
Whether the United States will escort ships through the southern lane before any decision on new strikes.