MIDDLE EAST — U.S. Central Command said its forces struck three Iranian crude oil carriers on Sept. 5 after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched ballistic missiles toward two U.S. Navy warships in regional waters.
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The command said an aircraft carrier and a guided-missile destroyer evaded the incoming fire and that no American personnel were harmed.
CENTCOM said it permanently disabled M/T Downy off Kharg Island and M/T Stark 1 near Jask, and that it completely destroyed the unladen M/T Kylo, also called Noxen, in the Gulf of Oman after directing the crew to abandon ship.
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Adm. Brad Cooper, the CENTCOM commander, said U.S. forces would impose a higher economic cost if Iranian forces fired on American ships, and that the command would, if necessary, destroy Iran’s oil fleet.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry, in a Sept. 5 statement published by state-run Islamic Republic News Agency, said U.S. attacks on oil tankers anchored in Iranian waters violated Paragraph 4 of Article 2 of the United Nations Charter and called the strikes a war crime.
State-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting said one tanker was hit near Kharg Island with no casualties, and that two tankers were hit near Jask, one carrying oil and one empty, with crews taken to shore in lifeboats.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, in a later Sept. 5 statement published by those same state-run outlets, said it had targeted three oil tankers on what it called an unauthorized Strait of Hormuz route and three U.S.-affiliated vessels in other areas.
CENTCOM has not published a matching account of those later Iranian claims. U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said that if Iran shoots at U.S. ships, the United States will destroy and sink Iranian oil tankers.
The Sept. 5 exchange sits inside a campaign that began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, followed by a U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports from April 13, a pause in mid-June, and a resumption on July 14.
CENTCOM said on Sept. 4 that, as of Sept. 3, U.S. forces had redirected 87 commercial vessels, disabled three, and boarded two while enforcing the blockade.
USS Boxer (LHD 4), an amphibious assault ship with more than 2,600 Sailors and Marines embarked, and USS John Paul Jones (DDG 53) were among the ships CENTCOM identified as supporting that enforcement in early September.
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