File image.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on May 20 released video footage showing a strike on a vessel that it said violated the blockade on the Strait of Hormuz amid the war with the United States and Israel.
The Guards didn’t specify when the strike took place, or identify the vessel, which appeared to be a tanker. It said, however, that the strike was meant as a warning.
The strike was carried out using what appears to be a Raad-3 loitering munition. The electric-propelled loitering munition, which features an x-wing design, has a range of 100 kilometers, and an endurance of 40 minutes with a top speed of 70 kilometers paper hours.
It carries a warhead weighing 12 kg, and equipped with a satellite-aided inertial navigation system. Terminal guidance is provided via an optical targeting system with a data-link, providing man-in-the-loop control, with the ability to track automatically after luck.
While the Raad-3 can’t sink a vessel as large as the one targeted by the IRGC, it can still certainly disable it. That’s likely what the Guards meant when they described they said that the strike was carried out as a warning to the vessel, which attempted to cross the Strait of Hormuz without coordination.
The strategic waterway — responsible for around 20 percent of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments — has very much remained under de facto Iranian control since the start of the American-Israeli war on the Islamic Republic on February 28.
Iran is reported to have attacked at least 37 vessels that attempted to violate the blockade since then, including several which were hit after the ceasefire with the U.S. went into effect on April 8.
While the Islamic Republic is controlling navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, it has not completely closed it. In fact, on May 20, the IRGC said that it allowed more than 25 vessels, including oil tankers, to transit the waterway in the last 24 hours.
“Over the past 24 hours, 26 vessels — including oil tankers, container ships and other commercial vessels — transited the Strait of Hormuz,” said the Guards’ navy in a post on X. It adds that the ships passed after “coordination and security provided by the IRGC Navy.”
A new report by Reuters revealed that Iran is enforcing a multi-tiered system for clearing vessels through the Strait of Hormuz.
According to the report —published on May 20 — the system set up by the Islamic Republic can involve in some cases government-to-government arrangements, intense vetting by the Iranian government and sometimes fees in exchange for safe passage.
It’s worth noting that the U.S. has been enforcing a blockade on Iranian ports since April 13. The blockade affected shipping from and to the Islamic Republic, but failed to soften Tehran’s stance on the Strait of Hormuz, and arguably made the situation in the waterway far more complex.
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