Strait of Hormuz: Revolutionary Guards say two tankers and a tug burst into flames on “unauthorised routes” and claim they seized two US LUCAS drones

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards announced on Thursday, November 5, that on Wednesday night two tankers and a tug burst into flames in the Strait of Hormuz because they tried to move along “unauthorised routes” through the Strait. They also claim that the electronic warfare units of the Guards’ Navy took control of two American LUCAS drones. The claims have not been confirmed by an independent source.

A mine, a fire and a tug in flames

In the statement, released by state broadcaster IRIB, the Guards describe two separate incidents “the previous night”. In the first, a large tanker trying to pass through what they call the “illegal passage” in the southern part of the Strait hit a naval mine, caught fire and was immobilised. In the second, a supertanker leaving the same route in the eastern part of the Strait was immobilised after an extensive fire. A tug that approached to put out the flames also caught fire.

The Guards added that Navy electronic warfare specialists landed intact and captured the two “intruding” American unmanned LUCAS aircraft, repeating that they manage the Strait “with full control”. They made similar claims about two American drones over Qeshm, which Washington did not confirm; see our report on the Qeshm incident.

Washington’s “losses” and the elections

The sharpest point of the statement concerns the US. The Guards accuse the American administration of pushing ships to pass through mined channels, loading the heavy cost of insurance onto taxpayers and its allies in the region. Had it released the frozen Iranian funds, which Tehran says do not even amount to half of the losses so far, it “would not have suffered these heavy losses and a humiliating electoral defeat”, they note, referring to the Democrats’ win in the midterm elections. “The attempt to violate the rules in the Strait of Hormuz will bring the US nothing but more economic losses and bigger political defeats,” they warn.

In the same spirit, Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, wrote on X that the Iranian nation imposed on Trump a “strategic defeat on the battlefield and in Hormuz” and a “political defeat in Washington”. The Guards’ statement also marks 250 days of “resistance” since the war began on February 28. These are statements by one side of the conflict.

A new claim in a series this week

It is the latest in a series of announcements by the Guards this week. On Tuesday, November 3, they spoke of three tankers in flames, and on Wednesday, November 4, they announced that four tankers were destroyed by mines and that they shot down an American MQ-9. Tehran is pressing ships to use a northern passage through its own waters rather than the southern corridor set by Oman.

The British maritime operations centre UKMTO recorded on Wednesday a strike by two unknown projectiles on a tanker about 26 kilometres off the coast of Oman, with no injuries or pollution, but did not link it to the Guards’ announcements. On Tuesday the same centre reported that two projectiles hit the engine room of the Barbados-flagged tanker Grit, 14 nautical miles north-east of Lima, Oman. By November 3 the International Maritime Organization had recorded 128 confirmed incidents involving ships since the start of the conflict and 24 dead seafarers.