The war of words over the Strait of Hormuz took another turn on Thursday. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards announced that three oil tankers had blown up on mines within a single day, and the regular army later added a fourth vessel, which it described as crippled and burning east of the chokepoint.
According to Tehran, the ships were trying to slip out along the southern corridor hugging the coast of Oman, a lane Iran refuses to recognise. The Guards accused the crews of switching off radar and navigation gear and ignoring orders from Iranian naval units. No ship names, flag states or casualty figures were given, and the Associated Press said it was unable to verify the account.
Independent confirmation so far covers far less. Britain’s UKMTO maritime agency logged a wooden dhow that burned and went down about nine nautical miles north of Khasab in Oman, with its crew rescued. It also described a separate attack in which a small craft fixed two explosive charges to a tanker, leaving it adrift after an engine-room fire, again without injuries to the crew.
Only a day earlier, US Central Command had said the main transit routes were free of mines. Guards spokesman Hossein Mohebi shot back, telling Washington to back up the claim with “independent evidence”. The Guards also said they had seized an American MQM-170 reconnaissance drone over the western part of the strait.
Before the war broke out in late February, roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and gas passed through Hormuz. Now traffic has dwindled to a handful of transits per day. The US is enforcing a blockade of Iranian ports and escorting tankers, and says Gulf exporters have shipped 1.5 billion barrels that way since the summer.
Diplomacy is running alongside the threats. Through Qatar, Vice President JD Vance has passed Tehran a written proposal on how negotiations could be structured, addressed to security chief Mohsen Rezaei. At the same time, according to a Wall Street Journal report, the top American commander for the region, Admiral Brad Cooper, went to the White House in person to brief Trump on military options.
