American forces struck multiple Iranian oil tankers on Tuesday in reprisal for attempted strikes by Iran on a Navy warship, a U.S. official said, as the war, which had been relatively calm for weeks, heated up with tit-for-tat attacks.
Iranian state media said that U.S. forces had attacked Iranian oil tankers off Kharg Island, the hub of the country’s oil industry, and Jask, a port city on Iran’s southern shore.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps vowed to retaliate, warning tankers near Kuwait and Bahrain — which both host American forces — to evacuate their crews.
Even as President Trump has tried to pivot from a military campaign against Iran to one focused on choking its economy, fighting has flared in recent days as each side jostles for control over the economically vital Strait of Hormuz.
U.S. military officials have vowed to punish Iran for any attacks on American ships, threatening to strike three Iranian ships for every two vessels hit by Tehran. But Iran has continued to fire on ships, throttling the world’s oil supply, to preserve one of its biggest sources of leverage.
The result has been a stalemate.
Aside from the assault on Tuesday, the United States and Iran each said on Saturday that it had attacked the other’s ships, setting off a round of strikes.
The back-and-forth strikes came days after the United States bombarded southern Iran, igniting some of the most intense fighting in weeks and killing civilians at a wedding.
The U.S. strikes on Tuesday came hours after Iran’s navy claimed it had seized an uncrewed American underwater vehicle in the strait. It said the vehicle had been “designed to independently carry out extended missions in deep waters,” including surveillance and mine detection, according to a statement carried by Iranian state media.
Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said that an underwater drone operated by U.S. forces to survey regional waters “in support of ongoing operations” had malfunctioned more than a day ago. He said the drone had been a “defective” older model that neither collected sensitive data nor carried any classified equipment. He said he could not confirm Iranian reports that the technology had been seized.
Iran has insisted that it be allowed to control the passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, which sits on its southern coast and is an important waterway for the transit of oil and other critical resources. After the United States and Iran launched the war in February, traffic in the strait dropped precipitously.
The U.S. Navy has been helping ships navigate a southern route through the strait, near the coast of Oman, drawing attacks from Iran.
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