The US military fired on and disabled an Iranian-flagged tanker that tried to break the naval blockade around the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, officials said.
The M/T Hasna was intercepted by American forces at around 9 a.m. EST, with a fighter jet firing its auto-cannon at the ship when it attempted to sail towards an Iranian port in the Gulf of Oman, said US Central Command (CENTCOM).
“After Hasna’s crew failed to comply with repeated warnings, US forces disabled the tanker’s rudder by firing several rounds from the 20mm cannon gun of a US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet launched from USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72),” CENTCOM wrote on X.
“Hasna is no longer transiting to Iran,” the military added.
The US has maintained a blockade against all ships attempting to enter or depart Iranian ports as a means of strong economic pressures against the Islamic republic.
Iranian-linked ships were the only vessels sailing through the Strait of Hormuz after Tehran shut down the oil chokepoint, which saw more than 130 ships cross its waters every day before the war.
President Trump recently said that the blockade will remain in place despite the apparent progress in US-Iranian peace talks.
Iran, which claimed that the peace talks had made no progress, has yet to comment on the latest ship to be caught by the US blockade.
Just an hour after the interception took place Wednesday, US CENTCOM said that 52 commercial vessels had been stopped and redirected by US forces since the blockade went into effect last month.
The latest interception came just two days after the US and Iran exchanged fire in the Strait of Hormuz, with the US sinking six of Tehran’s fast attack boats patrolling the waterway.
