ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Two vessels were struck by unknown projectiles while transiting the Strait of Hormuz late Thursday, the British navy monitor reported, urging ships in the area to proceed with caution. The incident came hours after several explosions were reported off Iran’s southern waters as tensions with the US in regional waters continue to heighten.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) cited a “third party” as reporting that “two vessels [were] involved in an incident” four nautical miles west of the Omani exclave of Musandam, at the entrance of Hormuz Strait.
“The Master of the vessel reports seeing four unknown projectiles hit two unknown vessels, causing a fire on one vessel,” UKMTO said, noting that “the status of the second vessel is currently unknown.”
The British maritime monitor added that “authorities are investigating” the incident as “vessels are advised to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity to UKMTO.”
The incident came hours after “the sounds of several explosions were reported in the coastal areas of Sirik, Qeshm, and Minab County” in the southern Hormozgan province, Fars News Agency, an affiliate of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), reported on Thursday. Fars cited the Hormozgan governor's office as stating that “the source of the sounds came from the direction of the sea.”
The blasts were also confirmed by state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) which reported that several areas in Sirik were hit by “hostile projectiles” without providing further details. Meanwhile, Tehran’s national Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) reported that “an explosion was heard from the Strait of Hormuz.”
A day earlier, Fars relayed that “an explosion was heard in the southern areas of the port city of Jask, coming from the sea,” as Iran's semi-official Mehr News Agency reported late Wednesday that “several explosions were heard in the cities of Bandar Abbas and Sirik” in Hormozgan as well.
The reports came as the IRGC said Wednesday that it targeted two US vessels, eight oil tankers and ten other ships attempting to cross what it called a “prohibited and unsafe zone” of the Strait of Hormuz. In a statement carried by IRNA, the Corps said the attacks were “in response to the aggression” of the US military which struck “five Iranian oil tankers in the Persian Gulf.”
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed that its forces “destroyed five Iranian crude oil carriers” in regional waters after the IRGC “targeted a U.S. Navy warship with ballistic missiles twice over the past two days,” adding that the warship “successfully evaded the attempted Iranian attacks" and that "no American personnel were harmed.”
“Iran has used the tankers as part of a multibillion-dollar shadow network that funds the IRGC and its regional proxies,” CENTCOM added, noting that its forces had destroyed three other Iranian crude oil carriers on Saturday “after the IRGC tried to attack a U.S. aircraft carrier and guided-missile destroyer.”
The Strait of Hormuz - a major energy chokepoint through which roughly one-fifth of global oil supplies pass - has been a flashpoint since the war's outbreak in late February, when the US and Israel launched a joint aerial campaign striking thousands of targets across Iran over six weeks.
While the warring sides reached a preliminary ceasefire in early April, followed by the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding in mid-June, which established a truce and opened a window for negotiations, both sides have traded repeated rounds of strikes.
Moreover, tensions in the Strait remain elevated, with a US naval blockade on Iranian ports still in effect and Iran continuing to assert sovereignty over the key waterway, forcing commercial vessels to seek authorization for passage.
Importantly, IRGC Spokesperson Brigadier General Hossein Mohebbi said Wednesday that Iran is expanding its maritime control zone beyond the Strait of Hormuz to include waters off its southeastern port city of Chabahar, extending across the Sea of Oman and into the Arabian Sea.
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