Iran's Revolutionary Guard navy says two supertankers using what it called an unauthorised route south of the Strait of Hormuz struck naval mines and exploded on Friday, Africanews reports. The claim could not be independently confirmed.
According to the IRGC statement, fires broke out in the ships' engine rooms and both came to a stop. It said the vessels were carrying more than 4.5 million barrels of crude between them and that their crews abandoned ship. The semi-official Tasnim agency said traffic by "violating" vessels had been halted after Iran destroyed navigation aids and targeted four tankers on Thursday.
Separately, the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre said an outbound tanker reported being hit by an unknown projectile about seven nautical miles north-east of Limah, Oman, on Thursday evening.
Source: Africanews
Photo: Hormozgan Province, Hormuz, Unnamed Road, Iran – panoramio (2) by سید محمود جوادی, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Illustrative image of Hormuz.
