CENTCOM says five Iranian tankers destroyed in response to attacks on US ships

Update, 9 September, 10:08 Israel time

US Central Command has confirmed the tanker strikes and put a number on them. The Abu Ali Express monitoring channel, citing CENTCOM, reported that American forces attacked and destroyed five Iranian oil tankers overnight, describing the vessels as part of Iran's shadow shipping fleet and the strikes as a response to Iranian launches at American warships over the previous two days. The same report said the American vessels evaded the Iranian fire and were not damaged.

According to that account, CENTCOM also said the US military had destroyed three further Iranian oil tankers on 5 September in comparable circumstances, bringing the reported total to eight tankers destroyed over three days. Abu Ali Express additionally linked overnight Iranian launches in the direction of Jordan to the tanker strikes.

News.co.il published footage it said showed an Iranian tanker sinking after the American attack.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressed the exchange publicly, in remarks quoted by Joe Truzman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Rubio said Iran was continuing to try to hit US naval ships and that each attempt would cost Tehran tankers, adding that he expected this to be seen again the same day.

The reports still do not give the names or flags of the destroyed tankers, and do not say whether anyone aboard was killed or injured.

The story as first reported

Iran launched a wave of attacks against United States Navy vessels, according to a Wall Street Journal report cited by Israeli outlets, in what would be the second such attempt in three days. No American ship was hit, and the US military had not confirmed the incident at the time of the reports. Israel's N12 news, citing the Journal, said the episode followed an earlier launch of ballistic missiles toward an American aircraft carrier and a destroyer on Saturday.

Separately, Iranian media reported explosions near Kharg Island in southern Iran, and an American official told Israeli and US outlets that the US had struck tankers linked to Iran. The Abu Ali Express monitoring channel reported that Iran's Fars news agency described blasts heard near Kharg, while the Shi'ite Sabereen channel reported an attack on an Iranian oil tanker.

Where Kharg Island and Jask are

Kharg Island sits in the northern Persian Gulf and hosts Iran's main crude oil export terminal, the point through which the bulk of the country's seaborne oil shipments pass. Jask is a port city on Iran's southern coast, outside the Strait of Hormuz on the Gulf of Oman, and has been developed as an alternative oil loading point. Both locations were named in reports of the American strikes.

N12 quoted American officials speaking to Fox News as saying the US military struck Iranian oil tankers near Kharg Island and near the port of Jask, describing it as part of a broader effort to damage Iran economically. Iranian state television later reported that another Iranian tanker had been attacked in the Jask area, according to Abu Ali Express, and Israeli outlets reported further Iranian claims of a tanker attacked near Kharg during the evening.

The American explanation

An American official said the strikes on Iran-linked tankers were a response to attempts to harm US vessels, according to Ynet. The Jerusalem Post reported the same day that a US official told the paper that Washington was targeting Iranian oil tankers, as Iran reported explosions near Kharg Island.

The two strands, Iranian fire at warships and American strikes on tankers, were reported within hours of each other, and the sequencing between them is not settled in the material. Ynet's alert service reported the American official's framing of the tanker strikes as retaliation, while the reported attack on Navy ships was said by the Journal to have taken place the previous day and to have gone unacknowledged by the US military.

Iranian warnings

The commander of Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, the body that oversees the operational command of the country's armed forces, said the US military had ordered Iranian oil tankers to evacuate ahead of being struck, according to Abu Ali Express. In a statement quoted by the channel, the commander said any harm to Iran's oil tankers "will lead to an attack on American bases in the region by the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran."

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the ideological military force that operates alongside Iran's regular army, warned crews of tankers anchored in Bahrain and Kuwait to leave their vessels before they are attacked, News.co.il reported, describing the warning as a response to the American strikes near Kharg earlier that evening. Bahrain hosts the headquarters of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet.

What Washington is said to be watching

Although no American vessel was damaged, the attempts have raised concern in Washington that Tehran intends to escalate and is using more sophisticated weaponry, N12 reported. Officials also fear that Iran may be receiving help from China or Russia in tracking the position of American warships, according to Ynet. Joe Truzman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies wrote that such assistance remains unconfirmed.

What the reports do not say

The material does not give the number of tankers struck, their names, their flags or whether anyone was killed or injured, on the vessels or on shore. It does not say what weapons Iran used against the Navy ships, how many were fired, or which vessels were targeted in the latest wave, beyond the earlier reference to a carrier and a destroyer.

There is no US military confirmation in the material of the attacks on its ships, only the Journal's account relayed by Israeli media alongside a US official's comment on the tanker strikes. Iranian claims of tanker attacks near Kharg and Jask come from Iranian state media and affiliated channels and are not independently confirmed in the reports. Nor do the reports establish the order of events between the Iranian launches and the American strikes, or whether any American bases were subsequently attacked.