File image.
A tanker caught fire in the Strait of Hormuz after a small boat approached the vessel and attached two explosive devices directly to its hull, temporarily disabling it in an attack that marked a departure from previous strikes on commercial shipping in the waterway.
The attack occurred on October 29, approximately 25 nautical miles northeast of the port city of Khasab in Oman, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency.
UKMTO said the tanker was approached on its port side by a small boat that attached two explosive devices above the waterline before departing.
Maritime security firm Vanguard Tech identified the vessel as the Panama-flagged Louise 1, a 159,092-deadweight-ton tanker owned by Panama-based Aquarius Maritime Ventures.
“The subsequent blasts resulted in a fire in the engine room which temporarily disabled the vessel. The fire is now reported as extinguished and vessel is continuing to its next port of call,” UKMTO said, noting that all crew members were safe.
The method differs from previous Iranian attacks in the Strait of Hormuz, which have mainly involved anti-ship missiles and one-way attack drones.
The incident was the latest in a series of maritime security emergencies reported on October 29. Earlier in the day, UKMTO received a report from a company’s security officer that another tanker had been struck by an unidentified projectile while completing an outbound transit of the strait.
An even earlier vessel-fire report by the agency was subsequently attributed to a regional trading dhow that caught fire, listed and sank.
“Regional authorities have identified the vessel as a dhow, which was involved in a maritime security incident, igniting a large fire onboard causing the dhow to list and sink. Local authorities have confirmed that the crew have been safely evacuated,” UKMTO said.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy said three oil tankers had exploded and caught fire after striking naval mines while attempting to pass through what Tehran described as the unauthorized southern route of the strait.
The Corps said in a statement the vessels had “switched off all their radar and navigation systems” and ignored warnings from Iranian forces before hitting the mines.
Iran’s regular army subsequently announced that a fourth tanker had struck mines east of the strait while operating in what it described as a “restricted and dangerous area.”
The developments come as the United States maintains that its forces have cleared the internationally recognized primary shipping routes of naval mines.
IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohebi challenged that assertion earlier in the week, writing on X: “Prove your Hormuz mine-clearing claim with independent evidence, not statements!”
The International Maritime Organization recorded 34 confirmed attacks on vessels between September 28 and October 27, most of them in the Strait of Hormuz.
Commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remained severely restricted on October 30, with AIS-based tracking recording just five commercial vessel crossings by the morning, compared with a pre-crisis average of approximately 85 per day.
Eight vessels had crossed in the preceding 24 hours, while 497 ships were waiting outside the strait and another 163 were stationary inside the Gulf.
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so how is the 3 weeks smo ‘epstein fury’ going? have we won yet, yes, no, wtf