The United States military conducted strikes on Iran’s Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf and near the southeastern port city of Jask, east of the Strait of Hormuz, marking the latest in a series of retaliatory exchanges between the two nations.
“American forces have struck multiple Iranian tankers associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in response to further attempted missile attacks on a U.S. Navy warship,” a U.S. official told Al-Monitor.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) has repeatedly stated that it will take action if the IRGC continues to launch projectile attacks within this vital economic waterway.
Iran’s state-aligned Tasnim News Agency reported that a small oil tanker was targeted by U.S. forces off the coast of Kharg Island.
Roughly an hour prior on Monday, a spokesperson for Iran’s armed forces headquarters, known as Khatam al-Anbiya, warned that U.S. bases in the region would be targeted again if the U.S. military struck Iranian oil tankers.
The recent hostilities followed coordinated projectile attacks on U.S. Navy surface vessels on Monday, which occurred after an earlier attack on Sunday, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Pentagon has not disclosed details regarding the Sunday attack, and a CENTCOM spokesperson did not return Al-Monitor’s request for comment by publication time.
In the early hours of Tuesday, following the U.S. strikes, the IRGC issued a statement warning crews to immediately abandon tanker vessels at ports in Kuwait and Bahrain, Iran’s Press TV reported.
The IRGC stated that countries hosting U.S. forces share responsibility for the U.S. attacks and urged crews to “immediately move their vessels away from both anchorages and ports, as they will be targeted.”
Iran’s state-run broadcaster, however, issued a warning from the Iranian Armed Forces, calling on crews aboard tankers anchored in Kuwait and Bahrain to “immediately abandon your tankers.”
The U.S. military initiated strikes on sanctioned Iranian oil tankers last week, broadening its targets following IRGC drone attacks on two Saudi tankers off the coast of Oman, as well as what officials described as a coordinated but thwarted Iranian missile and drone attack on a U.S. aircraft carrier and a destroyer.
The latest strikes in the contested waterway occurred just hours after the Trump administration announced a new round of economic sanctions targeting Iran’s commercial airline industry.
Earlier on Monday, Iranian state media and government social media accounts claimed to have shot down a U.S. MQ-1 Predator drone over the Strait of Hormuz after allegedly capturing an Anduril Dive-LD unmanned submarine.
A U.S. military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed to Al-Monitor that an unmanned undersea drone was lost in the vicinity of Hormuz due to a malfunction “more than a day ago.”
“It was surveying regional waters in support of ongoing operations,” the official said, adding that the “defective drone was an older model that neither collected sensitive data nor carried any classified sonar or radar equipment.”
The official did not confirm whether the U.S. had recently lost an MQ-1 or any other model of aerial drone. The U.S. military has reportedly lost at least three dozen MQ-series drones in the conflict, which the U.S. and Israel initiated in February with surprise airstrikes against Iran.
