TEHRAN (The Thursday Times) — Two more oil tankers caught fire on Thursday after hitting naval mines in waters east of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s army said, hours after the Revolutionary Guards said two supertankers had been disabled by explosions in the strait.
In a statement carried by Iranian state media, the army’s public relations office said the tankers had entered a “prohibited and unsafe area” despite warnings and after switching off their radar systems. It said responsibility lay first with US President Donald Trump and then with the ships’ owners, who it said had trusted his “misleading statements”.
The army did not name the vessels, their flags, or their cargo, and said nothing about their crews. There was no independent confirmation of the incident, and no response from the United States or the shipowners, by early Friday.
The statement came after the Guards said on Thursday morning that two supertankers carrying more than four million barrels of oil had been stopped by explosions late on Wednesday after using a route Tehran has declared off-limits. Taken together, Iranian forces say four tankers have been hit since Wednesday night. None of the four has been identified, and independent maritime authorities have not said what struck them.
On Wednesday, the army also said another tanker had caught fire after hitting a mine in a “restricted area” in the eastern part of the strait. The US military said recently that it had cleared the waterway of mines.
Separately, a Liberia-flagged tanker with 22 crew was struck by an unidentified projectile off Ras Al Khaimah on Wednesday, and all on board were evacuated. Neither Iran nor the maritime agencies have linked that attack to the incidents Iran reported.
Since the war began with US and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28, Tehran has restricted shipping through the strait, which normally carries about a fifth of the world’s oil, and insists that ships use routes it approves. The United States has imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports, and Iran’s security chief has tied the strait’s reopening to seven conditions.
In a post on his social media platform on Thursday, Trump said Washington did not need a deal with Iran because it had “their money” and “their Strait”.
