Iran just made the Strait of Hormuz too expensive to cross

A tanker just got hit in the Strait of Hormuz. Again.

The ship is called MT On Peace. It's Panama-flagged, owned by a Dubai company called Onex DMCC. An unknown projectile struck it earlier today while it was crossing the strait.

Twelve of its 19 crew got hurt. Eleven of them are Indian nationals. India's Ministry of External Affairs confirmed that.

Omani authorities helped get the injured off the ship. They're being treated now in Khasab, a port town in northern Oman.

Nobody has claimed the attack.

And here's the thing. This is the third tanker hit in under a week.

Two days ago it was the Lipsi, a Liberian-flagged tanker, hit near Oman's Jazirat Umm al-Fayarin. The blast tore into its engine room. No one was hurt that time.

Five days ago it was the Kazimah III, a Kuwaiti supertanker. It caught fire. All five crew got off safely.

So how often is this happening? The UK Maritime Trade Operations agency tracks it. It says there's been roughly a strike a day somewhere between the strait and the Gulf of Aden since 2 October. A shipping intelligence firm called Marisks counts at least seven tanker incidents in the past week alone.

And almost every one of these attacks hits the same spot. The engine room.

That's not an attempt to sink these ships. It's an attempt to slow them down. To choke one of the most important oil routes on the planet.

So why is this happening here, over and over?

Because the Strait of Hormuz has been a war zone since February. That's when the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran. Iran hit back by effectively closing the strait, firing on ships it says are crossing without permission. Washington answered with a blockade of its own, on Iran's ports.

Iran says there's a safe route through the strait, the southern one, and that it's the only designated path. It has said any ship that strays from it could be targeted, or could hit a mine. Iran hasn't claimed today's attack. It hasn't claimed any attack this month. But it hasn't dropped that warning either.