Strait of Hormuz News: Tanker Hit by Limpet Mines Off Oman

A tanker leaving the Strait of Hormuz has been set on fire by two explosive devices fixed to its hull from a small boat about 25 nautical miles northeast of Khasab, on Oman’s Musandam Peninsula, in what appears to be the first reported successful limpet mine attack there since the U.S. and Israeli war with Iran began on February 28. The UK Maritime Trade Operations centre, run by the Royal Navy, reported the attack at 22:12 GMT on October 29, stating that the devices detonated above the waterline and started an engine room fire which temporarily disabled the ship. The fire was extinguished, the crew are safe and the tanker has resumed its voyage to its next port of call. The attackers have not been identified, and the incident looks very different from the mine strikes which the Revolutionary Guards say tankers have suffered on the strait’s southern route.

The attack came during a run of Iranian statements that tankers were striking naval mines. On October 29 the navy of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed that three oil tankers had hit mines and caught fire over the previous 24 hours on what it calls the unauthorised southern route near the Omani coast that U.S. forces urge shipping to use. On October 30 the Guards claimed that a supertanker carrying more than two million barrels of crude oil had exploded on a mine and been abandoned near the entrance to the strait, saying the ships had switched off their navigation systems and ignored warnings. Neither statement named a ship, a flag or an owner, and no maritime authority has confirmed any of the mine strikes the Guards have been announcing since mid-October, with the incidents it has confirmed being projectile strikes and the Khasab attack.

U.S. Central Command responded by stating that American forces have cleared all internationally recognised primary transit routes and that those routes remain free of sea mines and in use by commercial shipping. Its commander, Admiral Brad Cooper, has said Iran’s navy has been destroyed and that the Revolutionary Guards no longer operate in the waterway, although the Khasab attack shows that a small boat can still reach a tanker 25 nautical miles off Oman. Oman’s Maritime Security Center separately said on October 30 that the Royal Navy of Oman had evacuated 25 crew from a Panama-flagged vessel set on fire by an attack off Musandam, without naming the ship or the attackers. Few ships are still crossing, with traffic through the strait having fallen to about three a day in the four weeks to October 25, against about 78 before the war.

Limpet mines are far from new to these waters: on May 12, 2019, four merchant ships, two of them Saudi tankers, were damaged by explosive charges off the Emirati port of Fujairah. On June 13, 2019, the Japanese-operated tanker *Kokuka Courageous* was struck in the Gulf of Oman, after which the U.S. military released video it said showed a Revolutionary Guard patrol boat removing an unexploded limpet mine from its hull, and Iran denied any role in either attack. A day after the Khasab attack, Qatari mediators returned to Tehran for talks, after Washington had warned regional allies of possible renewed strikes following the U.S. midterm elections on November 3. A joint investigation led by the United Arab Emirates had told the UN Security Council in June 2019 only that the Fujairah charges were most likely the work of a state actor.