Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Say Mines Hit 3 Ships in Strait of Hormuz

Key Facts

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said 3 ships were hit by naval mines and caught fire while taking what it described as an unauthorized route through the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, November 10, according to Iranian state media. The Associated Press reported that the claim could not be independently verified. The agency added that the Guards said one of the ships was a supertanker and another was trying to cross the strait under the protection of the U.S. military. The report did not identify the ships or provide further details on the extent of the damage. If confirmed, the claim would put shipping through the strait at the center of regional security risks.

In a separate report, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said a tanker was hit by an unknown projectile on Tuesday northeast of Lima, Oman, and that its crew were safe. The Associated Press cited the agency’s account of the incident, noting that it monitors maritime security events. It was unclear whether the attack on the tanker was linked to the mine claim reported by the Revolutionary Guards. The two reports described different incidents: the first said mines hit 3 ships in the strait, while the second said an unknown projectile struck a tanker near Oman. The available report provided no link between them and did not identify who was responsible for the tanker incident.

The reports came as shipping estimates pointed to a sharp contraction in traffic through the strait. The National, citing the latest Lloyd’s List Intelligence figures published on November 8, said traffic had reached about 20% of its prewar level. That figure indicates the scale of the decline compared with the period before the war, but it is an estimate published before the November 10 reports. The newspaper also cited the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations as saying it had verified 8 attacks in the Strait of Hormuz and 3 in the Arabian Gulf during the previous week. It said 3 ships had sunk and 5 others had been rescued during the same period, a tally reflecting the widening range of maritime incidents the agency was reviewing at the time.

The figures reported by The National show that risks affected both the strait and the Arabian Gulf during the week before its November 8 report. According to the newspaper, the agency combined attacks it had verified in the Strait of Hormuz with others in the Gulf, alongside ships that had sunk and others that had been rescued. Shipping traffic stood at about 20% of its prewar level, according to the latest Lloyd’s List Intelligence figures cited by the newspaper. The report did not specify the daily change in the number of ships transiting or link the estimate to any particular incident. This background is dated before Tuesday’s events, making it context on shipping activity rather than a direct measure of the impact of that day’s reports.

EL7 data showed Brent crude settling at $91.49 a barrel on November 10, while West Texas Intermediate settled at $86.04 a barrel on the same day. These figures are for the November 10 session and do not represent the November 11 close. Closing data alone is also insufficient to determine the direction of trading during the session or explain its causes. The figures therefore do not show a market response that can be attributed to the maritime reports, which came that same day. Their relevance here is limited to the closing levels of the two crude benchmarks in the specified session.

Earlier EL7 reports had covered Iranian claims about other incidents in the strait. On November 4, the site published a report on the Revolutionary Guards’ claim that mines had hit 4 tankers, an earlier incident that differs from the November 10 claim involving 3 ships. The difference in date and number underscores the need to keep each report in its chronological context when covering a series of maritime incidents. On U.S. movements, The National said on November 8 that the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt was expected to arrive in the region that week. The newspaper added that Washington was weighing its next move, without the report giving any subsequent outcome of that expectation.