Seven commercial vessels were hit or disabled in the Persian Gulf and near the Strait of Hormuz over the previous 24 hours, according to an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy statement.
Four vessels were struck simultaneously while carrying out ship-to-ship transfers of oil cargoes in the northern Persian Gulf.
The Iranian force said the ships had been tracked after using a route it considers unauthorised. All four were burning after the strikes.
Three other vessels suffered incidents overnight after hitting mines west of the Strait of Hormuz. They caught fire and were brought to a halt. None of the seven vessels was identified. The statement gave no names, flags, IMO numbers, ownership or management details, crew nationalities, casualty figures or cargo volumes.
The account of the seven vessels has not been independently verified, and the statement provided no evidence establishing that the three ships west of the Strait of Hormuz had struck mines.
Separately, a tanker was hit by an unknown projectile about 11 nautical miles west of Bukha, Oman, at 0145 UTC on 21 October. The resulting fire was extinguished, all crew were safe and no environmental impact was recorded. The tanker later anchored.
Tanker AL DASMA, IMO 9653446, was damaged in a separate incident in the Strait of Hormuz on 20 October. There is no verified evidence linking AL DASMA or the tanker off Bukha to any of the seven vessels cited in the Iranian statement.
A total of 119 confirmed maritime security incidents had been recorded in the Middle East as of 21 October.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy is the maritime arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and operates separately from the country’s regular navy, with its activities centred on the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz.
