U.S. Central Command said American forces destroyed five Iranian crude oil tankers on September 9 after Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps fired ballistic missiles at a U.S. Navy warship in the region twice over the previous two days.
CENTCOM said the warship evaded both attacks and no American personnel were harmed. In response, U.S. forces struck four tankers in the Gulf of Oman, identified as the M/T Kaviz, M/T Charminar, M/T Horizon 1 and M/T Riesco, and a fifth vessel, the M/T Derya, near Iran’s Kharg Island. CENTCOM said crews were directed to abandon each ship before it was struck and rendered inoperable.
Iran retaliated with missile strikes aimed at U.S.-linked targets in Jordan. Jordan’s military said its air defenses intercepted 18 ballistic missiles headed toward its territory, while two others landed in unpopulated areas. No casualties were reported in Jordan as a result of the strikes.
The tanker strikes mark an escalation beyond an earlier U.S. action on September 6, when American forces struck three Iranian oil tankers following a separate set of alleged missile attacks on Navy warships. Tuesday’s strikes destroyed a larger number of vessels and followed direct attacks on a U.S. warship rather than an alleged threat, reflecting an intensifying pattern of exchanges between American and Iranian forces in and around the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian officials have not issued a detailed public accounting of the tanker strikes as of this writing. The Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz remain critical corridors for global oil shipments, and continued strikes on tanker traffic in the area have raised concerns among shipping companies about further disruptions to the route.
Sources: NBC News · NPR · Al Jazeera
