BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 4. Four oil tankers attempting to pass through a prohibited zone south of the Strait of Hormuz have been destroyed after hitting a naval mine since last night, and the vessels are still burning, according to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The IRGC said that the movement of two vessels attempting to pass illegally through the Strait of Hormuz has also been halted.
Furthermore, according to reports, a U.S.-owned MQ-9 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was shot down in the airspace over the Strait of Hormuz. This marks the 56th UAV of this type to be downed by the Air Defense Forces of the IRGC.
The event marks a fresh escalation in U.S.-Iran hostilities that flared on July 8, when U.S. forces launched airstrikes against targets in Iran, the first since a bilateral memorandum was signed, in retaliation for an earlier attack on a commercial vessel in the strait. Following U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement terminating the ceasefire, Tehran retaliated with strikes on U.S. facilities across Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, and Omani territory. The ongoing conflict has effectively brought commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz to a standstill.
