US says it destroyed Iranian tankers after US navy ship targeted

[WASHINGTON] US forces destroyed five Iranian tankers carrying crude oil on Tuesday (Sep 8) in response to two attempts to hit a US Navy warship with ballistic missiles in as many days, Central Command said.

The US military said on Tuesday that the American ship, which it did not identify, was not hit and is still patrolling regional waters. There were no US injuries, it said in a statement.

The destroyed Iranian ships belonged to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Central Command said US forces told the crews to abandon ship before the tankers were “rendered inoperable”, the statement said, adding that it had destroyed three other crude oil carriers on Saturday, following another failed attempt to attack a US aircraft carrier and guided-missile destroyer.

“When they try to hit US naval ships, they will get hit themselves,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in response to press questions while visiting Colombia.

“The back and forth is pretty straightforward,” he said. “For every time they do that, or try to do that, they’re going to lose tankers.”

The tit-for-tat strikes underscored the difficulty of the US attempt to pivot from active hostilities to a sustained campaign of economic pressure against Teheran.

US President Donald Trump and defence officials have repeatedly said Iran’s military was effectively incapacitated, while US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently said the pressure campaign “means that likely there will not be a large-scale kinetic restart”.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the attack on the American ship. 

The Iran war, which the US launched on Feb 28 and justified mainly as an attempt to curtail Iran’s nuclear weapons programme, has more recently focused on getting Teheran to reopen the critical Strait of Hormuz as an international waterway.

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The US Navy is blockading any ships loaded with Iranian crude and Iran has shot missiles at international ships trying to exit the Persian Gulf. One-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas transited the strait before the war.

Brent crude settled around US$98 and kept climbing after reports claimed explosions had been heard from the anchorage area of Kharg Island.

Iran’s main oil export hub, the island lies about 24 km off the mainland and is the loading point for around 90 per cent of the country’s crude shipments. 

Trump has repeatedly said Iran’s military has been decimated to the point where it is unable to attack American assets.

The administration announced in August it would focus on squeezing Iran economically and slow the military offensive, but the back and forth of strikes resumed.

On Tuesday, the US Treasury Department sanctioned dozens of firms that support Iran’s aviation sector.

Earlier, a report from Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said a US missile had hit an Iranian tanker off the coast of Kharg. 

Iran launched ballistic missiles at an air base in Jordan in retaliation, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported, citing an IRGC statement.

All tanker crews in the vicinity of Kuwaiti and Bahraini piers should “immediately abandon their vessels, whether at anchor or docked, as they will be targeted”, Iran’s state TV reported, citing an IRGC statement.

Iran also claimed on Tuesday that it had captured a state-of-the-art underwater drone that the US dismissed as “defective and malfunctioning”.

Iran is in talks with Oman regarding a deal to open up the waterway to traffic, but the two countries are likely to impose a fee on vessels. The US and its allies oppose any charge on the once-free international waterway.

Reports of explosions near Kharg on Tuesday fuelled a rise in oil prices. The island holds outsized importance in the conflict because of its crucial role in Iran’s energy infrastructure. 

US strikes on the island have focused on attacking military assets, but Trump has previously threatened to target oil facilities and at times floated even seizing the export hub. BLOOMBERG