Tehran claimed early Sunday an unmanned U.S. vessel seeking to transit the Strait of Hormuz was hit by Iranian forces in the latest escalation of conflict roiling the key international waterway.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees the U.S. military operations in the Middle East, did not immediately confirm or deny the purported attack, AP reports.
State-run media in Tehran said the U.S. vessel was trying to enter a restricted area in the Strait of Hormuz
The alleged Iranian strike came a day after the U.S. military said forces struck three oil tankers from the Islamic regime in response to a missile attack on U.S. Navy warships, as Breitbart News reported.
In that exchange two Iranian oil tankers were disabled by U.S. airstrikes while a third was “completely destroyed.”
The latest strikes and retaliatory developments over the past 24 hours in the disputed Strait of Hormuz. (Bedirhan Demirel/Anadolu via Getty)
One of the tankers was struck near Iran’s primary oil loading facility at Kharg Island, confirming reports of explosions near the island by Iranian state media.
Kharg Island hosts Iran’s main terminal to export oil. Some 90 percent of the country’s crude oil comes through the island, transported through pipes from the mainland.
The Strait of Hormuz is crucial to the world’s oil and gas industry but has been effectively closed since the war began in February as Iran seeks to use it as leverage in negotiating with the U.S. and its allies.
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Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has claimed it laid mines in international and Omani waters in the strait.
The International Maritime Organization in June said about 80 had been placed in vital shipping lanes but have seen been removed or neutralised by U.S. Navy operations.
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