Satellite image of Kharg Island, located in the Persian Gulf off the coast of Iran.
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The U.S. military attacked three Iranian crude oil carriers on Saturday after U.S. Central Command said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired ballistic missiles at two naval warships in the region.
CENTCOM announced that it had permanently disabled one crude oil carrier off Kharg Island and one near Jask. Another oil tanker was attacked in the Gulf of Oman.
The airstrike came after Centcom announced that the Revolutionary Guards fired ballistic missiles at two US Navy warships patrolling the area. Centcom said U.S. aircraft carriers and guided missile destroyers successfully evaded multiple attacks, and no U.S. personnel were harmed.
“Let us make our message clear to the Revolutionary Guards: If you shoot two of our ships, we will impose an even higher economic price. That means we will destroy three of your ships,” CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper said in a statement Saturday. “We will not hesitate to protect U.S. forces and, if necessary, destroy Iran’s limited and exposed oil fleet.”
Defense Division Pete Hegseth later wrote in a post to X: “Simple: If Iran shoots at US ships, we will destroy (and sink) their oil tankers. All they have to do is stop shooting at @USNavy.”
There was no immediate reaction from Iranian authorities to Saturday’s U.S. attack.
Iran is the third largest producer within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, and before the war, 90% of its crude oil was exported via Kharg Island. This flow has been interrupted by the US blockade on Iranian oil exports that began in mid-April.
The conflict between Iran and the United States has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, which was a key waterway for the world’s oil supply before the war.
US President Donald Trump threatened in June to seize Kharg Island as the US continues its military offensive against Iran. Most recently, on August 31st, he posted an artificial intelligence-generated video of Kharg Island being blown up.
The attack on the oil tanker came a day after the Treasury Department announced sanctions against a small Turkish investment bank and two of its subsidiaries that the United States accuses of financing Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
The Treasury alleges that Golden Global Yatilim Bankasi Anonym Sirketi and its subsidiaries Golden Global Warlik Kilalama Anonym Sirketi and Golden Global Portfolio Yonetimi Anonym Sirketi were “established for the purpose of enabling Iran’s Rabar network to remit oil revenues from China to Turkey, where they could be converted into cash or gold by Rabar money exchangers.”
Golden Global Bank is the second major financial institution to be targeted by Operation Economic Purge, the Trump administration’s effort to isolate Tehran through non-military action through sanctions against its business partners.
