Cairo, Sep 6: Iran said Sunday it struck an unmanned US vessel trying to enter the Strait of Hormuz, a claim that the US military dismissed as a “total lie.”
The purported attack came a day after the US military said forces struck three Iranian oil tankers in response to Navy warships being targeted with ballistic missiles. Experts called it a dangerous escalation after Iran’s previous attacks at sea targeted commercial shipping.
The war began with US and Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28. But since a fragile ceasefire agreement was announced in June, on-and-off fighting has persisted, with both sides trying to inflict military and economic pain as negotiations have collapsed.
Strikes came about a week after fighting resumed
The United States and Iran resumed attacks last week, following a month of relative calm, with the Strait of Hormuz and areas along Iran’s southern coast again being targeted. At least five people were killed earlier in the week during a US bombardment that returned attention to the area where a school was hit in the war’s opening strikes.
The Trump administration appears to have adopted a dual-prong approach to the conflict, responding militarily to attacks on the strait while going after foreign financial institutions that handle Iran’s money.
But Tehran’s hard-line new senior leaders have signalled a willingness to dig in after weathering decades of sanctions. Iran has found ways over the years to circumvent sanctions, and now a US blockade of its ports, and get its oil to buyers to help ease growing economic pressures. That relies in part on a shadow fleet transporting its oil.
US says million barrels of oil a day pass through the strait
Tehran’s new leverage focuses on the Strait of Hormuz that is crucial to global oil and natural gas shipments. It was seen as an international waterway before the war began.
