U.S. forces struck three Iranian oil tankers on Saturday after the country launched ballistic missiles toward two Navy ships. Central Command said American warships evaded the unprovoked attacks before permanently disabling or destroying the targeted vessels in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman.
CENTCOM Strikes Iranian Tankers After Missile Attack on Navy Ships
The U.S. military retaliated against Iran on Saturday following an unprovoked missile assault directed at American naval assets in the region. U.S. Central Command reported that an American aircraft carrier and a guided missile destroyer successfully evaded multiple ballistic missiles fired by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. No U.S. personnel suffered injuries during the engagement, and the past week saw the first exchange of fire after a month of relative calm.
In response, American forces targeted three vessels identified by the U.S. military as part of a shadow network helping to fund Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard and its armed proxies in the region. The operation keeps up a new tilt back toward fighting after six months of on-again, off-again war that began with U.S. and Israeli attacks on Feb. 28, coming a day after President Donald Trump sought to minimize the conflict as small potatoes.
Both sides have sought to inflict both military and economic pain, and negotiations have collapsed after new U.S. efforts to apply economic pressures on Tehran, whose hard-line new senior leaders have signaled the willingness to dig in after weathering decades of sanctions.
Specific Vessels Targeted Near Kharg Island and the Gulf of Oman
Military officials detailed the exact vessels disabled during the Saturday operation. CENTCOM said U.S. forces retaliated by permanently disabling two crude oil carriers, the M/T Downy off the coast of Kharg Island and the M/T Stark 1 near Jask. Forces also destroyed a third vessel, the M/T Kylo near the Gulf of Oman.
The Kylo was not carrying oil at the time and its crew was directed to abandon the vessel before American forces struck it in multiple locations, CENTCOM said. Iranian state TV had said earlier that four U.S. missiles struck a tanker about 6 miles (10 kilometers) from Kharg Island, home to a terminal through which the country exports most of its oil. Iranian media reported earlier Saturday that a tanker near Kharg had been hit by U.S. missiles and that its crew was being evacuated, with no casualties reported according to Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency.
Adm. Brad Cooper on Defending Forces and Destroying Iran’s Oil Fleet
The commander of CENTCOM added a direct warning regarding future maritime security in the vital shipping lanes. If you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose an even higher economic cost — taking out three of yours,
Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of CENTCOM, said in a statement. We will not hesitate to defend American forces, and if necessary, destroy Iran’s limited and exposed oil fleet.
The statement shared what it called video footage of the strikes.
Tehran Condemns Strikes as Regional Tensions Intensify Around the Strait of Hormuz
Iran’s Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the U.S. strikes, calling them illegal and aggressive
and accusing Washington of waging a naval blockade and economic war against Iran. In a statement carried by Iranian state media IRIB, the ministry said the attacks violated the United Nations Charter and constituted a war crime and a threat to international peace and commercial shipping.
The renewed exchange of fire follows months of volatility surrounding the Strait of Hormuz. Kharg Island is a tiny but strategic island 15 miles off the coast of Iran in the Persian Gulf that plays a central role in the country’s oil industry, featuring military capabilities including air defenses and mines buried underground. The site has repeatedly emerged as a flashpoint during the conflict, including U.S. strikes on military sites there in March. Petras Katinas, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, previously told NBC News that Kharg is the “backbone” of Iran’s oil trade infrastructure and the primary gateway for the country’s oil reserves.
Meanwhile, the issue that helped lead to the war — Iran’s nuclear program — was meant to be addressed in negotiations that fell apart soon after the U.S. and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding in mid-June. Instead, Tehran’s new leverage focuses on the strait that is crucial to global oil and natural gas shipments and was seen as an international waterway before the war began. The U.S. military has been helping to guide ships through the strait as Tehran asserts control and targets some vessels, but overall traffic remains low.
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