GULF OF OMAN — On September 8, U.S. Central Command said its forces struck five crude oil carriers it identified as belonging to the IRGC after the Guard twice fired ballistic missiles at a U.S. Navy warship over the preceding two days.
The command said the warship evaded both attacks, stayed on patrol, and that no American personnel were harmed in those ship attacks or the tanker strikes that followed.
It named the carriers as M/T Kaviz, M/T Charminar, M/T Horizon 1, and M/T Riesco in the Gulf of Oman, and M/T Derya near Kharg Island, and said U.S. forces directed the crews to abandon ship before the vessels were struck and rendered inoperable.
U.S. Central Command: “M/T Riesco sinks in the Gulf of Oman, Sept. 8, after being destroyed by CENTCOM forces in response to attempted IRGC attacks on a U.S. Navy warship.”
On September 5, the same command said it had disabled or struck three other carriers, M/T Downy off Kharg Island, M/T Stark 1 near Jask, and M/T Kylo, also called Noxen, in the Gulf of Oman, after ballistic missiles were launched toward a U.S. aircraft carrier and a guided-missile destroyer.
Adm. Brad Cooper, the CENTCOM commander, said then that the United States would answer fire on its ships by imposing a higher cost on Iran’s oil fleet.
Iranian state-run media, citing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, described a ballistic-missile attack on al-Azraq air base in Jordan on the same day as the tanker strikes.
Neither CENTCOM nor the Jordan Armed Forces General Command has said whether anyone was hurt there. CENTCOM’s statement that no personnel were harmed covers the ship attacks and the tanker strikes, and is not a theater-wide casualty report for Jordan.
After the September 8 tanker strikes, the IRGC Navy told crews of oil tankers at or near ports and anchorages in Kuwait and Bahrain to leave their ships at once, and said vessels that remained would be targeted, according to the IRGC Navy warning as quoted by Iranian state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, and as carried by Iranian state-run Tasnim.
On the same evening, Major General Ali Abdollahi, chief of the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, said any attack on Iranian oil tankers would result in the targeting of U.S. bases in the region.
