TEHRAN (The Thursday Times) — Two supertankers carrying more than four million barrels of oil between them were disabled by explosions in the Strait of Hormuz late on Wednesday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards navy said on Thursday, accusing the ships of using a route Tehran has declared off-limits.
In a statement, the Guards said the two tankers had travelled through the southern part of the strait “despite repeated warnings” from their traffic control centre and were stopped after a violent explosion. They said the oil on board was now ablaze.
The statement did not name the vessels, their owners, or the flags they sail under. The state of the ships, their crews, and the cargo figures have not been independently confirmed.
Mines, Tehran says
Iranian state media later said the tankers had hit naval mines and broadcast footage it said showed the blasts. Independent maritime authorities have not established what caused them, and the US military said recently that it had cleared the strait of mines.
The Guards accused the ships of cooperating with the US military and warned that any vessel that switched off its navigation systems and used the southern route with US help would “face the same fate”.
Iran has reported several ships catching fire on routes it considers unauthorised in recent weeks, including a tanker it said hit a mine earlier this week. Britain’s maritime security agency recorded separate reports this month of tankers struck by unidentified projectiles near Oman’s coast.
A strait under pressure
Since the war began with US and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28, Tehran has restricted traffic through the strait, which normally carries about a fifth of the world’s oil, and insists ships use routes it approves. The United States has imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports and has helped tankers through.
Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said this week that the strait would never return to its pre-war status, and Iran’s security chief has tied its reopening to seven conditions. Sources also said this week that Iran had hit navigation aids on Oman’s Didamar island.
The International Maritime Organization had recorded 134 confirmed incidents in the region as of November 11, with 25 seafarers killed.
