American forces boarded an Iranian-flagged tanker ship traveling in the Gulf of Oman after the vessel attempted to break through the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, Central Command said Wednesday.
Marines searched the ship and ordered the crew to alter course, said CENTCOM, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East.
The CENTCOM statement on social media did not clarify what, if anything, the ship was carrying.
“U.S. forces continue to fully enforce the blockade and have now redirected 91 commercial ships to ensure compliance,” CENTCOM added.
Iranian authorities have not commented on the seizure. In the past, Iran has asserted that U.S. seizures and attacks of commercial vessels amount to war crimes and piracy.
The operation is the latest in a string of seizures aimed at strangling Iran’s oil trade through a comprehensive blockade of its ports along the Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz.
U.S. forces have previously seized tankers operating outside Iran’s territorial waters, conducting operations in the broader “Indo-Pacific” region.
The ship seized by U.S. forces could have been one of the 26 vessels that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said successfully transited the Strait of Hormuz over the last 24 hours.
Iran has kept the strait, through which at least 20% of the world’s oil travels each year, closed for over three months, threatening to attack any ship linked to Israel or the U.S.
