US strikes Iranian tankers; Tehran retaliates with missile attacks on Jordan base

The United States military struck five Iranian oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman and near Kharg Island on Tuesday, responding to what it said were two separate ballistic missile attacks on an American warship over the previous 48 hours. The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, had targeted the vessel twice, according to US Central Command, though the ship evaded both attempts without casualties. The five tankers—the Kaviz, Charminar, Horizon 1, Riesco, and Derya—were hit and rendered inoperable after their crews were ordered to evacuate. Video released by the US military showed the Riesco sinking in the Gulf of Oman.

Iran's response came swiftly. The IRGC fired what it described as fierce missile strikes against the Al Azraq base in Jordan, claiming that hangars housing US fighter jets were destroyed. The Iranian military also asserted that it had targeted two American Navy destroyers—the DDG-119 and DDG-53—with ballistic missiles, inflicting what it said was significant damage. In a subsequent statement, the IRGC expanded its claims, saying its forces had struck two American vessels and eight tankers in the region, causing what it characterized as great damage. The US military offered no immediate response to these Iranian assertions.

Jordan's military provided a different account of the missile barrage. The country's air defenses engaged 20 ballistic missiles, successfully intercepting and destroying 18 of them, according to a statement from the Armed Forces. Two missiles landed in unpopulated areas without causing casualties. Specialized teams began securing the locations where debris and shrapnel fell. The exchange of fire marked a sharp escalation in a conflict now six months old, with the US and Israel conducting military operations against Iran while Tehran had closed the Strait of Hormuz and Washington maintained a naval blockade on Iranian ports.

The tanker strikes carried immediate economic consequences. Oil prices surged to $99.49 a barrel in early Wednesday trading, reflecting market anxiety over supply disruptions in one of the world's most critical shipping lanes. Kharg Island, which the Iranian tanker had been near, had handled roughly 90 percent of Iran's oil exports before the war began. The IRGC had previously warned that all crews operating near Bahrain and Kuwait's borders must evacuate immediately, signaling that further attacks on commercial shipping were possible.

This was not the first time the US had targeted Iranian tankers. On September 5, American forces had attacked three Iranian oil carriers, sinking one of them. Iran responded that same day by attacking three commercial ships and three US-linked vessels. The pattern suggested a cycle of tit-for-tat strikes with no clear off-ramp. Iran's top security official, Mohsen Rezaei, announced plans to establish a restricted zone outside the Strait of Hormuz, warning that any ship entering it would face Iranian sanctions.

Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the latest US attacks as a violation of the United Nations charter and a war crime, characterizing them as part of a broader American campaign of military aggression and economic warfare. The ministry held Washington and its partners fully responsible for the consequences. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking during a visit to Colombia, defended the strikes without equivocation. "Iran continues to try to hit US naval ships, and for every time they do that or try to do that, they're going to lose tankers," he said. The statement suggested the US intended to continue targeting Iranian commercial vessels as a direct response to Iranian military action.

Analysts in Washington viewed the tanker strikes as a deliberate shift in American strategy. The US was now selecting different targets—economic ones—in response to Iranian attacks, marking what observers called an escalation in the conflict's character. Whether the strikes represented a formulated long-term strategy or a response driven by immediate circumstances remained unclear, but the economic impact on Iran was undeniable. The targeting of tankers aligned with what the US administration had publicly declared as its strategy: bringing economic strangulation to Iran.

Separately, the IRGC claimed it had captured an unmanned US submarine at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz in what it described as a complex intelligence and operational action. The US military countered that the underwater drone had malfunctioned while conducting surveillance and contained no classified sonar or radar equipment and had not collected sensitive data. The competing claims underscored the fog of war surrounding the conflict, with each side asserting capabilities and damage that the other disputed or left unconfirmed.