U.S. forces disabled two more Iranian oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman on Friday, adding a new maritime flashpoint to the already strained U.S.-Iran ceasefire and the fight over access to the Strait of Hormuz.
The latest incident marks a sharp escalation in Washington’s blockade enforcement campaign. The Associated Press, in a report carried by NPR, reported that U.S. forces fired on and disabled two Iranian tankers after an overnight exchange of fire with Iranian forces in the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. military said the vessels were attempting to breach an American blockade of Iranian ports.
gCaptain, citing U.S. Central Command, identified the ships as the M/T Sea Star III and M/T Sevda. According to that report, a U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet launched from the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush fired precision munitions into the vessels’ smokestacks, disabling both before they could complete their voyage to Iran.
Three Iranian Tankers Have Now Been Disabled
The Friday strikes followed an earlier U.S. action against the Iranian-flagged M/T Hasna, which U.S. forces said was also trying to violate the blockade. gCaptain reported that CENTCOM said “all three vessels are no longer transiting to Iran,” referring to the two newly disabled tankers and the earlier Hasna incident.
That detail matters because it shifts the story from a one-off enforcement action into a repeated U.S. campaign against Iranian-flagged commercial vessels. CENTCOM also said more than 50 commercial vessels have been redirected since enforcement operations began, underscoring how quickly the military standoff is reshaping shipping patterns around the Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz.
Ceasefire Pressure Keeps Building
The tanker strikes came less than 24 hours after U.S. officials said Iranian forces targeted three U.S. Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz with missiles, drones, and fast boats. Washington said no American ships were hit and that U.S. forces responded by striking Iranian military facilities.
Iran, however, has accused the United States of violating the ceasefire. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called the U.S. military action “hostile” and said Washington was choosing what he described as a reckless military path while diplomacy was still on the table.
President Donald Trump has continued to say the ceasefire remains in effect, even as the U.S. maintains its blockade of Iranian ports. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that Washington was still waiting for a serious Iranian response to the latest proposal aimed at ending the war, reopening the strait, and addressing Tehran’s nuclear program.
Why This Is a New Angle
List25 has already covered the earlier single-tanker strike and the broader naval exchange around Hormuz. This development is different: U.S. forces have now disabled two additional Iranian tankers in a separate Friday operation, with CENTCOM naming the vessels and tying them directly to blockade enforcement.
The effect is larger than the fate of two ships. Each new strike raises the risk that the blockade becomes a cycle of ship interceptions, Iranian retaliation, and further U.S. enforcement actions. For global energy markets, that keeps the Strait of Hormuz crisis alive even as diplomats continue trying to preserve a fragile ceasefire.
For now, the core fact is blunt: three Iranian tankers have been disabled in U.S. blockade operations, commercial traffic remains heavily disrupted, and the maritime side of the Iran crisis is getting harder to contain.