OMM Newsroom
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy said two oil tankers exploded in the Strait of Hormuz after ignoring repeated warnings against using what it called an unauthorized route, Anadolu Agency reported.
The incident took place late Wednesday as the vessels were transiting the southern part of the strait, despite repeated warnings from the IRGC Navy’s traffic control center, according to a statement carried by Iran’s ISNA news agency.
The statement described the vessels as supertankers carrying a combined cargo of more than 4 million barrels of oil. It said they had been stopped following a “massive explosion.”
The IRGC Navy accused the tankers of “cooperating with the US military”, which it called a “smuggling army”. It warned that any ship in the Persian Gulf or Strait of Hormuz that switched off its navigation systems and cooperated with US forces to cross the southern route would “face the same fate”.
The statement did not identify the vessels or provide further details about the incident.
The development comes amid continued tensions between Iran and the US over navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, a major route for energy and commodity supplies and a key issue in negotiations between the two sides.
The war began with US and Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, before a ceasefire was reached in April. Clashes between Washington and Tehran later resumed as negotiations stalled, despite the two sides signing a memorandum of understanding in June.
