US and Iran Trade Fire as Third Tanker Is Hit in Strait of Hormuz

The fragile lull in the Strait of Hormuz has ended, with American and Iranian forces exchanging fire for the first time in more than a month and a fresh run of attacks on merchant shipping threatening the transit routes painstakingly re-established over the summer.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard said on Monday that an unidentified tanker had struck two naval mines in the southern part of the strait, caught fire and been brought to a complete halt. The IRGC gave no details of the vessel, its crew or its cargo, and the incident has not been independently confirmed. Tehran said the ship had been attempting to use an illegal route and warned other vessels to comply with its rules for navigating the strait.

The claim sits awkwardly against the picture drawn a week earlier, when US Central Command announced that mine clearance operations had left the internationally recognised traffic separation scheme free of sea mines. The Joint Maritime Information Center has been markedly more cautious, warning that drifting and uncharted mines remain a danger around the scheme and that designated mine danger areas are still active.

The military confrontation resumed on Sunday, when US forces struck two Iranian launchers on Larak Island, which overlooks the shipping lanes at the entrance to the Gulf. Washington said IRGC personnel had been preparing rockets carrying sea mines and described the operation as limited action against an imminent threat to shipping. It was the first known American strike inside Iran since late July.

Iran answered with missile and drone attacks on US bases in Jordan. Ballistic missiles were launched from several parts of the country and anti-ship cruise missiles were fired towards Hormuz, putting commercial traffic directly back into the line of fire.

The escalation caps a punishing week for tanker owners. An unidentified inbound tanker was struck by an unknown projectile late on Saturday around 12 nautical miles north of Khasab, Oman, with no casualties or pollution reported. It was the third tanker hit in the strait in less than a week. The Kuwaiti products tanker Al Salam II was struck on 25 August, sustaining a hole above the waterline and a small fire, while the Liberian-flagged aframax Metro Venetian was disabled by an engine-room fire after a strike a day earlier.

Tehran has meanwhile intensified its policing of inbound traffic, with IRGC small craft identifying ships at close range and ordering selected vessels to abort transits. Iran recently circulated a list of 46 ships it says have breached its new navigation regime.

Six months into the conflict, normal trading remains remote. The International Maritime Organization estimates that up to 400 ships carrying around 6,000 seafarers are still unable to leave the Gulf safely, a figure that has barely moved despite falling cargo volumes through the waterway.