Iran touts Hormuz attacks as oil flows increase despite tensions

Tehran, Iran – Iran is claiming success in attacking ships – including US Navy vessels – near the Strait of Hormuz, saying that the strikes have forced Washington to move its warships further from the Iranian coast.

It comes as US media reported on Sunday that eight US Marines had suffered from smoke inhalation and potential traumatic brain injuries on September 14 after being targeted by an Iranian antiship cruise missile in the Strait of Hormuz.

Al Jazeera reached out to US Central Command (CENTCOM) for comment on the reports, but did not receive a response. CENTCOM previously said that US vessels had successfully evaded Iranian ballistic missile attacks earlier this month. The US officials quoted in the reports on the injuries to the US Marines said that the vessel they were on when attacked was not a US Navy ship.

The Pentagon had earlier quietly added 29 US sailors and eight Marines to its list of war-wounded, increasing the total since the start of the war on February 28 to 861 service members. At least 19 deaths have been recorded.

In recent days, Iranian state-linked media claimed that US warships pulled back earlier this month from their previous line of blockade positions. Previously positioned closer to the Iranian port of Chabahar and the entrance to the Gulf of Oman, the media reports said they had now moved further into the central Arabian Sea, reportedly to avoid Iranian missiles.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei appeared to make a reference to US naval movements in the latest message attributed to him published by state media on Monday.

US forces are now refraining from advancing further “because of the painful blows they have suffered at the hands of the valiant fighters and the guardians of the Strait of Hormuz”, he said.

“Whenever they have taken that risk, they have brought harm upon themselves,” Khamenei’s message said. “And soon the Arabian Sea, too, will empty itself of them”.

For its part, the US continues to maintain a naval blockade of Iran’s southern ports in some form, while rejecting the Islamic Republic’s latest proposal for reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

But with Tehran saying it is ready for both defensive and offensive military action if necessary, analysts believe controlled escalation is expected, even if renewed all-out war is unlikely to be on the immediate horizon.

Iran’s authorities are likely to continue targeting ships because the strategy has served Tehran’s aims during the war, said maritime law and security expert Ian Ralby, pointing to the similar success of the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen for nearly three years.

Ralby, who is also the president of the good governance nonprofit Auxilium Worldwide, told Al Jazeera that missile and drone strikes have become a means by which a weaker military power can gain a significant strategic advantage and impact global markets.

“It is fairly certain, therefore, that whether US personnel are on board or not, attacking ships will continue to be part of Iran’s approach to fighting, not only for its continued existence, but for its strategic regional hegemony,” Ralby said.

Oil shuttles

The escalating rhetoric from Iranian authorities comes as the US military has been able to move considerably more energy shipments through the Strait of Hormuz in recent weeks – although the waterway is still far away from its pre-war unimpeded state.

Despite the IRGC’s insistence that the strait remains closed to vessels that do not coordinate passage with Iranian authorities, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Sunday that nearly 13 million barrels of crude were passing through it each day. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave a higher estimate of 15-22 million barrels per day (bpd), compared with roughly 20 million bpd before the war.

Bessent also claimed on Sunday that Iran was unable to export its own oil through the blockade, leaving it with only about 15 million barrels already stored at sea that could be shipped to China within two weeks.

Crude exports through the Strait of Hormuz were expected to average 7.4 million bpd in September, according to preliminary data released by Kpler on Monday. The data and analytics company said on Friday that 19 tankers transited the strait in the week ending September 27, including 17 very large crude carriers (VLCCs), each capable of carrying two million barrels of oil.

Regional exports, including shipments from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, and Iran rebounded to 12.8 million bpd in September, the highest since the start of the war.

Analysts appearing on Sunday on Be Vaght-e Iran, a war-focused Iranian state television programme that adopts a hardline position, acknowledged that available evidence indicated at least seven million barrels of crude were passing through the Strait of Hormuz daily.

The analysts said Arab Gulf governments were using shuttle systems to move oil out of the region, with US forces providing protection. Because the operations involved state-backed arrangements, the analysts said, they could avoid relying on international insurance companies charging high premiums.

The system includes using older or less valuable VLCCs and other smaller vessels, which would at times turn off their transponders and travel close to the coast of Oman until they exit the strait. They would then engage in ship-to-ship transfers before re-entering the waterway to reload.

Mediators work to contain tensions

After US President Donald Trump said he had rejected conditions put forward by Iran for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, reports indicated that mediators were expected to facilitate further diplomatic exchanges between the two sides on Monday and throughout the week.

Iran has said there will be no direct negotiations, and that it wants to use the June memorandum of understanding with Washington and the bilateral Hormuz deal finalised with Oman as baselines for a future agreement with the US that lifts the blockade and also deals with Iran’s nuclear programme.

Hamidreza Azizi, a senior Iran analyst at the Crisis Group, said he believes Iranian authorities are increasingly prepared to rely more heavily on attacks in and around the Strait of Hormuz if the current diplomatic track fails and the US blockade remains.

“This does not necessarily mean that Tehran has already decided to launch a sustained campaign against US warships, but the threshold for doing so appears to have come down considerably,” he told Al Jazeera.

The expert said the Islamic Republic wants to prevent an assessment taking hold in Washington that Iranian leverage over Hormuz is declining and the US can normalise maritime traffic while keeping Iran economically isolated through sanctions and blockade.

“That could mean increasing the number and intensity of attacks on commercial vessels, using more projectiles in each attack, targeting escorting naval assets, or even trying to inflict casualties on US personnel,” Azizi said.

But he cautioned that a successful Iranian attack causing significant US casualties could lead to a level of escalation that Tehran wants to deter. More aggressive attacks could also push Saudi Arabia and others towards the US, so the Iranian approach is “likely to remain calibrated, but increasingly aggressive”, he said.

Auxilium’s Ralby said no amount of violent action has so far succeeded in bringing either party to the point of being willing to abandon their efforts and pursue a lasting peace, although Iran’s continued ability to push back against the US has undermined some narratives by Washington.

“While that may serve Iranian interests, it likely does not accelerate the path towards a negotiated settlement,” he said.