US military fires on oil tanker attempting to ‘violate’ Iran ports blockade
Washington: US forces have announced that they fired missiles at an unladen oil tanker attempting to sail toward an Iranian port in the Arabian Gulf and disabled it, the US Central Command said.
The commercial vessel, identified as Curacao-flagged M/T Belma, “ignored multiple warnings as it attempted to violate the US blockade,” the command said in a post on social media on Wednesday (local time).
A US aircraft disabled the vessel sailing toward Kharg Island after firing hellfire missiles into the ship’s smokestack, it added. “The ship is no longer transiting to Iran.”
US forces reimposed its naval blockade against vessels transiting to or from Iranian ports and coastal areas on Tuesday.
The US military on Wednesday conducted two waves of strikes against Iran, the US Central Command said earlier.
“At 3 p.m. ET (1900 GMT), U.S. forces launched operations for a second wave of strikes today against Iran,” the command wrote in a post on X. “The strikes are targeting Iranian military capabilities used to threaten vessels freely transiting through the Strait of Hormuz.”
Earlier on Wednesday (local time), the command said that it had begun launching a wave of strikes against Iran at 6 a.m. Eastern Time (1000 GMT), reports Xinhua news agency.
During the 90-minute wave, the forces launched precision munitions against coastal defence systems and cruise missile storage and launch sites on Greater Tunb Island.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said on Wednesday that it conducted retaliatory strikes against the US military facilities in Bahrain and Jordan, attacking their military infrastructure, aircraft shelters, key command centres and strategic drones, local media reported.
In a statement, the IRGC said its Aerospace Force targeted the US military base at al-Azraq in Jordan in response to renewed US aggression against Iran. The attack destroyed shelters which have US F-15, F-16, and F-35 fighter jets, and several MQ-9 strategic drones stationed at the base, Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported.