There has been a new, violent escalation in the Gulf of Oman, where US military forces have destroyed five Iranian tankers loaded with crude oil. The operation triggered an immediate retaliation by Tehran, exacerbating a conflict that has now been ongoing for six months.
According to reports from the US Central Command (CENTCOM), Washington’s military action was triggered after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had twice targeted a US Navy warship with ballistic missiles over the previous two days. The American vessel managed to evade the attacks without sustaining any damage and continued its patrol; no US military personnel were injured.
Tehran’s response came the following day. Iranian authorities stated that they had launched a missile attack on a US military base in Jordan and claimed to have damaged or stopped a further 10 vessels from passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
Meanwhile, Centcom has released footage of the raids on its official social media channels. It shows at least one of the vessels hit, the Riesco – a 106,500-dwt oil tanker built in 2003 sailing under a fake Zimbabwean flag – sinking in the Gulf of Oman.
The attack follows another raid led by US forces at the weekend, when three tankers linked to Tehran had already been attacked. Speaking from Bogotá, Colombia, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio firmly reiterated the White House’s stance: “Iran continues to try to hit U.S. naval ships. And for every time they do that or try to do that, they’re going to lose tankers.”
Translation by Giles Foster
