Florida [US], July 18 (ANI): The US Central Command (CENTCOM) has dismissed Tehran’s claims that two oil tankers sustained damage from mine explosions while attempting to navigate the Strait of Hormuz.
In a post on X, CENTCOM asserted, ‘Like most IRGC claims, this is false.’
https://x.com/CENTCOM/status/2078272156815802516?s=20
The denial followed assertions by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Saturday (local time) that two oil tankers had exploded after striking mines within the critical maritime corridor.
The incident unfolds amidst an ongoing exchange of drone and missile strikes between the two nations.
According to an IRGC statement published by the state news agency IRNA, ‘An hour ago, two oil tankers, which were trying to pass through the minefield south of the Strait of Hormuz by deceptive American intelligence agencies, exploded and caught fire.’
Furthermore, the IRGC claimed it had ‘stopped’ four vessels attempting to traverse the narrow but vital waterway, which historically accounts for the transit of approximately one-fifth of global oil and gas shipments.
Meanwhile, American forces executed strikes against Iranian targets for the seventh straight night.
In a post shared on X, US Central Command stated that the operations were engineered to ‘continue degrading Iranian military capabilities.’
The intensifications follow previous warnings from US President Donald Trump, who threatened to target Iranian infrastructure.
However, as of Friday, Washington had not officially confirmed whether American forces had initiated strikes against such assets.
The current wave of hostilities represents the most severe escalation between the two adversaries since the conflict resumed.
Tehran has accused Washington of targeting civilian infrastructure, specifically naming an airport, a railway station, and two bridges, and asserted that it had launched counter-strikes against US assets throughout the region.
Following the American strikes on what Iran described as civilian infrastructure, the Islamic Republic launched a sequence of military operations against US naval and military installations across the Gulf zone.
The country’s armed forces, alongside the IRGC, independently declared strikes under Tehran’s active military campaigns, hitting targets in Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Oman, and Syria.
Reports carried by the Iranian state broadcaster IRIB indicated that both the Iranian Army and the IRGC framed these operations as a direct retaliation for recent US assaults on Iranian soil and military personnel.
Tehran further claimed to have widened the scope of its retaliatory actions across several regional nations, declaring strikes against US military bases and assets in Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Oman, and Syria.
In a separate development, CENTCOM confirmed on Friday (local time) that its forces had ‘successfully destroyed’ a surveillance tower located at Iran’s Shahid Kalantari Port in Chabahar.
US officials stated that the facility was a component of a broader maritime surveillance network utilised by the IRGC to monitor commercial shipping lanes in the Gulf of Oman, with a specific focus on the Strait of Hormuz.
Detailing the operation on X, CENTCOM announced, ‘On July 16, U.S. forces successfully destroyed the Chah Bahar Shahid Kalantari Port surveillance tower, part of a maritime surveillance network along Iran’s Gulf of Oman coastline used for decades by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to track and target commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz.’ (ANI)
