US strikes Iranian tankers after attempted attack on Navy ship
WASHINGTON — The US military carried out strikes on Iran’s Kharg Island in the Gulf and around the southeastern Iranian port city of Jask, east of the Strait of Hormuz, in the latest retaliatory exchange of fire between the two sides.
"American forces have struck multiple Iranian tankers tied to the IRGC in response to more attempted missile attacks on a US Navy warship," a US official told Al-Monitor.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) has repeatedly said it will respond if Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) continues to launch projectile attacks into the vital economic waterway.
Iran's state-aligned Tasnim News Agency reported a small oil tanker was targeted by the US off Kharg Island.
Roughly an hour earlier on Monday, the spokesperson for Iran’s armed forces headquarters, known as Khatam al-Anbiya, issued a warning that US bases in the region would again be targeted with attacks should the US military again strike Iranian oil tanker ships.
The IRGC said countries hosting US forces share responsibility for the US attacks and said crews should “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 Iranian Armed Forces, calling on crews aboard tankers anchored in Kuwait and Bahrain to “immediately abandon your tankers.”
The US military began striking sanctioned Iranian oil tankers last week, expanding the scope of its targets following IRGC drone attacks on two Saudi tankers off the coast of Oman, and what officials said was a coordinated but thwarted Iranian missile and drone attack on a US aircraft carrier and a destroyer.
The latest exchange of strikes over the contested waterway came hours after the Trump administration announced a new tranche of economic sanctions on Iran's commercial airline industry.
Earlier on Monday, Iranian state media and government social media accounts claimed to have shot down a US MQ-1 Predator drone over the Strait of Hormuz after allegedly capturing an Anduril Dive-LD unmanned submarine.
A US military official, speaking on 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 US had recently lost an MQ-1 or any other model of aerial drone. The US military has reportedly lost at least three dozen MQ-series drones in the conflict, which the US and Israel initiated in February with surprise airstrikes against Iran.
