Iran's shipping lane just got hit three times in one day
1 hour ago · 1 October 2026Share
Chemical and oil products tanker ACADIAN coming into harbor in Newfoundland, Canada on September 4, 2022. File photo. Gordon Leggett · CC BY-SA 4.0
Three oil tankers just got hit by unknown weapons in the Strait of Hormuz.
It happened two days ago, within 24 hours of each other. And all three ships had their tracking switched off at the time.
The ships are called Al Ruwais, Mersin Prosperity and Sinbad. A shipping intelligence firm called Marisks found them first. Then UKMTO, the Royal Navy-backed body that tracks ships in the region, confirmed it. UKMTO says its own reports came in late, after the attacks had already happened.
So what's the damage? Nobody actually knows yet.
All three crews are safe. No oil has leaked. But a maritime risk firm called Vanguard Tech says the extent of the damage to the three ships is still not clear.
And there's a fourth ship.
Two days before that, a Kuwait-flagged tanker called Al Funtas caught fire after being hit in the same strait. That fire got put out. Crew unhurt.
Here's where it gets messy. Some shipping outlets say that fire belongs to Al Funtas, not to any of the three ships hit two days later. One outlet says the fire was on one of those three ships instead. We could not work out which version is true.
Nobody has claimed either attack.
So why does this keep happening? Because the Strait of Hormuz has been a war zone for months.
America, Israel and Iran have been fighting since late February this year. That's 217 days of war. The International Maritime Organization counted 85 confirmed attacks and 24 confirmed deaths of seafarers in the strait and the wider Middle East, as of a week ago.
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Map of the Strait of Hormuz connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman. File photo. Almajidy · CC BY-SA 4.0
One of those deaths happened eight days ago. Suraj Yadav was 26. He was from Deoria in India. He died when a bulk carrier called Cape Dao was hit off the coast of Oman. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps posted a video describing Cape Dao as a vessel that had broken its rules, but didn't say who attacked it. Nobody has formally claimed that one either.
And here's a detail worth knowing. Sinbad, one of the three ships hit two days ago, was already on a list Iran keeps of ships it says don't follow its approved routes through the strait.
That matters, because Iran has warned about this before. Months ago, Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya military command said ships ignoring its routes would face a tough response. That warning is old. Nobody has tied it directly to this week's attacks.
The strait has basically stopped moving. Only one ship passed through recently, on a day with data. Before the war, 85 ships went through every single day.
Shipping companies are giving up on the route completely. The Premier Alliance is sending one of its Asia-to-Europe routes back through the Suez Canal instead.
Oil jumped too. Brent crude rose to about $100.50 a barrel, up roughly two and a half per cent in a day.
And the diplomacy behind all this has stalled. Talks between America and Iran over a ceasefire, which would have reopened the strait properly, have reportedly broken down. Iran is said to be looking at a new American offer, but nobody knows yet what it says about the strait.
Even the basic facts are disputed. Most reports say all three ships are Liberian-flagged. One other report says Mersin Prosperity is flagged to Vanuatu and Al Ruwais to the Bahamas. There's also disagreement on what Al Ruwais even is — most call it an oil products tanker, but one maritime risk firm says it's an LNG tanker.
The company that runs Al Ruwais and Mersin Prosperity, ADNOC Logistics and Services, declined to comment. The company that runs Sinbad, Anglo-Eastern Tanker Management, did not respond.
So what don't we know? Who fired at any of the four ships hit in the last eight days. Why three of them had their tracking switched off. And whether this is the ceasefire talks falling apart, or a separate campaign that was already running before them.
Right now, the strait that carries a fifth of the world's oil is still barely moving at all.
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