The U.S. Iran blockade turned violent again on Saturday, Oct. 10, when an American fighter jet struck and disabled a cargo ship in the Gulf of Oman that U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said was trying to run the blockade after leaving an Iranian port. Within hours, a tanker caught fire in the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said it had hit a ship of its own.
The strikes show how crowded and dangerous the waterway has become, with Washington enforcing a blockade on ships entering or leaving Iranian ports while Tehran tries to control who may pass through the strait. Our earlier report on Hormuz tanker attacks and Iran’s threat to close the Oman route covers the run-up.
CENTCOM disables the Ocean Molica
According to CENTCOM, the crew of the Panama-flagged M/V Ocean Molica, also known as the Arika Sun, “ignored repeated warnings and attempted to run the ongoing naval blockade against Iran.” A U.S. jet then hit the ship’s stern with a precision munition, “fully disabling the ship’s propulsion without harming the crew,” the command said. Some outlets, including The National, spelled the vessel’s name Ocean Molika.
CENTCOM said the blockade resumed on July 14 and that in three months of enforcement U.S. forces have disabled four commercial vessels and turned 135 ships around. It added that U.S. forces destroyed 10 tankers tied to what it called the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ “multibillion-dollar shadow network” over the same period. The UK Maritime Trade Operations agency (UKMTO), which tracks incidents at sea, said on Sunday that it had received a report involving a vessel and military forces in the Gulf of Oman and that authorities were investigating.
Tanker fires and rival claims in the Strait of Hormuz
UKMTO also reported that an outbound tanker in the Strait of Hormuz was hit on its port side by an unknown projectile at about 11:20 p.m. UAE time on Saturday, setting the ship on fire. The crew was reported safe, and the damage and any environmental impact were not yet known.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) said in a statement carried by Iranian state media that its forces “have taken control of the administration of the strait” and had struck an LPG carrier it named as the NV Sunshine for using what it called an “illegal route” south of the main shipping lanes. The IRGC Navy separately claimed that a crude-carrying supertanker caught fire after hitting a naval mine while leaving the strait. None of the Iranian claims had been independently confirmed, and The National reported that the cause of several recent incidents remains unverified.
In the Arabian Gulf, the UAE National Guard said it rescued 22 crew members, all Asian nationals, from an oil tanker after a fire broke out on board; all were in stable condition. On Thursday, UKMTO said a vessel about 94 kilometers (58 miles) north of Madinat ash Shamal, off Qatar’s northern coast, was hit by multiple projectiles, causing several casualties.
Why the Iran blockade matters for oil and shipping
The Strait of Hormuz is the only sea route in or out of the Gulf. Before the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran began in late February, about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas moved through it. Tehran has insisted that ships seek permission and use routes it prefers, while more vessels have gambled on a path hugging the strait’s southern coast, Al Jazeera reported. The result is a two-sided squeeze: the United States stops ships linked to Iranian ports, and Iran targets ships that ignore its rules.
That squeeze reaches U.S. drivers. Higher fuel costs tied to the war are part of the backdrop for the Trump administration’s recent deal easing sanctions on Russian diesel, as reported in our story on the Russian diesel deal.
Debate in Washington
Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, questioned the latest strike on X: “What is this all for? Why are taxpayers paying billions to hit commercial ships?” He added that the goal “apparently” was leverage to persuade Iran to let the United States “pay them billions to return everything to the way it all was before the war.” CENTCOM has described the blockade as strict enforcement aimed at Iranian trade and the IRGC’s shipping network. President Trump has also pledged not to launch new strikes on Iran before the midterm vote, as detailed in our report on the Trump Iran strike pledge, which leaves the blockade as the main U.S. pressure point at sea for now.