US Destroys 5 Iranian Tankers After Missile Attacks, CENTCOM Says

U.S. Central Command said its forces destroyed five Iranian crude oil tankers on Sept. 8 after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps twice tried to strike a U.S. Navy warship with ballistic missiles over two days.

The warship evaded both attacks and continued patrolling in the region, CENTCOM said, without any American troops sustaining any damage.

Four of the tankers — the M/T Kaviz, M/T Charminar, M/T Horizon 1 and M/T Riesco — were struck in the Gulf of Oman. The fifth, the M/T Derya, was hit near Kharg Island.

Crews were directed off the ships before the strikes, which left the vessels unable to sail, according to the release. CENTCOM called the tankers part of a multibillion-dollar network that finances the Revolutionary Guard and its regional proxies, and said Iran has no means to protect them.

Iran’s account differs. The Guard’s naval units attacked two U.S. ships and eight oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, the IRGC said in a statement published by Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency and reported by Al Jazeera.

The strikes answered “the aggression and malice of the American terrorist army” after the United States hit five Iranian tankers, according to the statement.

The Guard also said its forces targeted 10 other ships that it accused of trying to pass through a “prohibited and unsafe zone” of the strait, “incited and supported” by the United States. The strait remains under the Guard’s “strong and authoritative surveillance and management,” the statement said.

CENTCOM rejected the Iranian account in a post on X, calling the claim that Guard forces struck two U.S. Navy destroyers false and saying no U.S. warships have been hit. The post put the number of Iranian tankers destroyed by U.S. forces in the past week at 10. The command’s written releases have identified eight: the five hit Sept. 8 and three it said were destroyed on Sept. 5.