An American aircraft fired a Hellfire missile into a cargo ship’s engine room on Friday, disabling the vessel after it tried to break the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
U.S. Central Command said on Saturday that the military took action against the Gambia-flagged M/V Lian Star after it tried sailing through the Gulf of Oman towards an Iranian port on May 29.
It’s the fifth time since early April that U.S. forces have directly fired on a ship to disable it as part of enforcing the blockade. The U.S. and Iran have maintained dual and competing blockades on the Strait of Hormuz, a major route for oil, gas and other important chemicals, for several weeks, and the status of transit through the strait has been a point of contention between the two countries.
American forces issued more than 20 warnings to the merchant ship, saying it was violating the blockade.
“A U.S. aircraft disabled the vessel by firing a Hellfire missile into the ship’s engine room after Lian Star’s crew failed to comply,” CENTCOM said in its statement. “The ship is no longer transiting to Iran.”
CENTCOM did not say what ships or units were involved in the attack. The Associated Press reports that U.S. forces have not boarded the commercial ship, and it remains adrift. It’s unclear if any crew were injured in the attack.
Marine Traffic, a maritime tracking outlet, reported that the Lian Star had been in the gulf for several days, having left Karachi, Pakistan bound for Iraq. According to CENTCOM, five commercial ships have been disabled and 116 vessels redirected since the start of the blockade.
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The incident happens as the United States and Iran remain in negotiations about extending the ceasefire announced in April and lifting the dual blockades of the strait. In a social media post on Friday, President Donald Trump said that the blockade will “now be lifted,” although he did not offer additional details on the immediate actions the U.S. would take. CENTCOM directed questions on that to the White House, whose eventual response did not address Trump’s comment about the blockade.
Although large-scale fighting has been paused for more than a month, American and Iranian forces have traded small-scale attacks since April, around the Strait of Hormuz and elsewhere. Those have included standoffs after the U.S. sent some ships to prepare for a demining operation in the strait and recent attacks on Kuwait, where the U.S. has major bases.
Bloomberg reported on Saturday morning that an Iranian missile attack on Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait left five people including active-duty troops wounded. Kuwait air defenses intercepted the missile, Bloomberg reported, but debris left people on the ground with minor wounds. That follows another attack on Wednesday, where Kuwaiti air defenses also intercepted munitions. On Monday, U.S. forces struck several targets around the city of Bandar Abbas along the Persian Gulf, in what CENTCOM called “self-defense strikes.”
