Iran Claims Strike on U.S. Unmanned Vessel Near Strait of Hormuz as Fighting Intensifies
CAIRO — Iran said Sunday that its forces had struck an unmanned U.S. vessel trying to enter the Strait of Hormuz, the latest military confrontation to hit one of the world's most critical shipping corridors. The Pentagon did not immediately confirm the reported attack.
The claim came a day after the U.S. military said it hit three Iranian oil tankers in response to a missile attack on American warships. Taken together, the attacks marked an end to a month of relative calm and reinforced that the cease-fire announced in June was not holding in practice.
The war began with U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28. A cease-fire and a memorandum of understanding signed in mid-June raised hopes that diplomacy could contain the conflict, but negotiations quickly fell apart. Since then, Washington and Tehran have kept up intermittent strikes, each side trying to impose military and economic costs while the other waits for an opening.
The latest violence has once again centered on the Strait of Hormuz and nearby areas. Earlier in the week, at least five people were killed during a U.S. bombardment of southern Iran. The renewed attacks suggest that the strait, long viewed as an international waterway, is now the main arena where the two countries test each other's limits.
The Trump administration has appeared to settle on a dual strategy: strike Iranian forces when they threaten the strait, and pressure foreign financial institutions that move Iranian money. That second track has made it harder for Tehran to finance its military operations, but Iran has spent years developing ways around sanctions, including a shadow fleet of tankers that keeps oil flowing to buyers.
Iran's new hard-line leadership has signaled it can wait out the pressure. Decades of sanctions have not forced a fundamental shift in the country's behavior, and officials in Tehran have learned to treat those restrictions more as a logistical problem than a political one.
The nuclear issue that helped drive the two countries to war remains unresolved. It was supposed to be addressed through the memorandum of understanding, but that track collapsed almost as soon as it began. Diplomats say the United States, Britain, France and Germany want the U.N. Security Council to refer Iran for failing to comply with its nonproliferation obligations.
In the meantime, Tehran appears likely to continue using the Strait of Hormuz as its main source of leverage. The waterway carries a large share of the world's oil and natural gas, and before the war it was considered international waters. For Iran, the ability to disrupt traffic there gives it influence that no negotiation has yet given it.