Three tankers burn in Hormuz as mines return to the strait

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Iran reports three tankers on fire in Strait of Hormuz euronews.com

Three tankers caught fire and were stopped in the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, according to Iran's Revolutionary Guard, which said the vessels were navigating routes Tehran considers unauthorized and had switched off their positioning systems. Oman's maritime security centre separately evacuated 25 crew members from a Panama-flagged commercial vessel that came under attack and burned roughly 1.6 nautical miles off the coast of Musandam. UK Maritime Trade Operations reported a further incident in which a small boat attached two explosive devices to a tanker's hull above the waterline, igniting a fire in the engine room; the Financial Times identified the vessel as the Louise 1. All crew were reported safe.

The Guard said the tankers continued sailing despite repeated radio warnings before encountering trouble in what it called unsafe areas — while providing no details on the vessels' identities, flags, causes, or crew condition. Thursday had already seen claims of three tankers striking naval mines along the strait's southern route, and it remained unclear whether Friday's vessels were additional or the same. It was the first successful limpet-mine attack since the US-Iran war began in February, according to the reporting — a weapons category whose quiet return undercuts repeated assurances from Washington. Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of US Central Command, has insisted the main shipping lanes were cleared of Iranian mines, that Iran's navy has been destroyed, and that Guard forces no longer operate in the waterway. Mines keep detonating regardless.

The timing is the story. Qatari mediators returned to Tehran on Friday to continue brokering an agreement between Iran and the United States — on the same day the Guard announced tankers ablaze on both the eastern and western ends of the strait. Tehran's negotiators sit in Doha-mediated talks while its naval force publishes the enforcement record of the threat it is negotiating away. CENTCOM, for its part, rejected the Guard's Thursday claim to have captured an American MQM-170 drone.

The strait now has three parallel authorities: the US Navy, which escorts tankers through lanes it declares cleared; the Revolutionary Guard, which stops and burns vessels on routes it declares unauthorized; and Oman's navy, which pulls survivors off burning hulls without assigning blame.