IRGC Claims Strikes on U.S. Vessels and Hormuz Tankers

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Navy said on Sept. 9 that it had hit two U.S. vessels and eight oil tankers in the Persian Gulf. The force said ten more ships trying to cross a “prohibited and unsafe” stretch of the Strait of Hormuz were hit as well, and that the U.S. and tanker targets took heavy damage.

The statement, carried by Mehr News Agency, framed the operation as payback for a U.S. attack on five Iranian tankers. U.S. Central Command had already said those five hulls were IRGC crude carriers it struck on Sept. 8, after ballistic missiles were fired at a Navy warship twice in two days. The warship evaded both shots, CENTCOM said, and no American personnel were harmed.

Iran’s Navy Claims 20 Ships Hit in Hormuz

Add the two American vessels, the eight tankers, and the ten “violating” ships, and the IRGC’s overnight tally is 20 hulls. It did not publish names, flags, cargoes, or coordinates for any of them. It said the ten extra ships had tried to transit with U.S. military encouragement and support, and that the strait remains under the “firm monitoring and management” of IRGC Navy forces.

A separate IRGC claim, relayed the same night, said ballistic missiles had also been fired at the U.S. destroyers DDG-119 and DDG-53 and had caused significant damage. CENTCOM’s Sept. 8 release did not identify the warship that was targeted, did not report a hit, and said the ship stayed on patrol.

THE SEPT. 9 IRGC CLAIM

• Two U.S. vessels: The IRGC Navy said both were targeted in the Persian Gulf and took heavy damage.
• Eight tankers: The same statement said eight oil tankers were hit in that response to the five Iranian carriers struck on Sept. 8.
• Ten other ships: Those hulls were accused of entering a prohibited Hormuz zone with U.S. backing; none were named.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• Independent hits: No second-source identification of the 20 claimed targets had been published with the statement.
• Destroyer damage: CENTCOM said the targeted U.S. warship evaded the missiles and that no Americans were harmed.
• Merchant identities: UK Maritime Trade Operations logged a merchant vessel in the strait as “subject to interaction as part of ongoing military activity,” without naming the ship.

That gap is the operational point. A claim that U.S. destroyers were smashed is a propaganda line until someone produces a hull number that matches a damaged ship. A claim that eight tankers and ten merchant ships were hit is a warning to every charterer still trying to use the strait.

Eight Iranian Tankers Destroyed Since Sept. 5

The U.S. side of the ledger is specific. CENTCOM said its forces destroyed five Iranian crude carriers on Sept. 8: M/T Kaviz, M/T Charminar, M/T Horizon 1, and M/T Riesco in the Gulf of Oman, and M/T Derya near Kharg Island. Crews were told to abandon ship before the vessels were struck and rendered inoperable, the command said.

Those five sit on top of three more struck on Sept. 5, after the IRGC launched ballistic missiles toward a U.S. aircraft carrier and a guided-missile destroyer. CENTCOM said it permanently disabled M/T Downy off Kharg Island and M/T Stark 1 near Jask, and completely destroyed the unladen M/T Kylo, also known as Noxen, in the Gulf of Oman. That is eight Iranian crude carriers in four days. The command said the ships were part of a multibillion-dollar shadow network that funds the IRGC and its regional proxies, and that Iran has no way to defend them.

THE EIGHT IRGC CARRIERS NAMED BY CENTCOM

Adm. Brad Cooper, the CENTCOM commander, set the exchange rate after the Sept. 5 strikes, tying missile shots at U.S. warships to Iranian oil hulls rather than to a matching naval duel.

Let the message to the IRGC be clear: If you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose an even higher economic cost, taking out three of yours. We will not hesitate to defend American forces, and if necessary, destroy Iran’s limited and exposed oil fleet.

Adm. Brad Cooper, CENTCOM commander, Sept. 5 statement

The Sept. 8 follow-up kept that rule and raised the count. CENTCOM posted the five-carrier result the same day, with video it said showed the strikes.

CENTCOM forces destroyed five Iranian crude oil carriers, Sept. 8, after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targeted a U.S. Navy warship with ballistic missiles twice over the past two days. The U.S. warship successfully evaded the attempted Iranian attacks and… pic.twitter.com/Gi8a2tloN1

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) September 8, 2026

Iranian state media described U.S. missile hits of their own. Tasnim said one tanker was struck about four miles off Kharg Island with no casualties reported. State broadcaster IRIB said a second tanker was hit off Jask and that both crews were being brought ashore in lifeboats. Those accounts overlap CENTCOM’s Kharg and Jask geography even as the two sides disagree on how many hulls burned.

The Evacuation Order Reaches Kuwait and Bahrain Piers

The IRGC Navy did not wait for anyone to verify its 20-ship claim before widening the threat. After the U.S. tanker strikes, it told crews on oil tankers near ports in Kuwait and Bahrain to get off, whether the ships were at anchor or at the dock, and said those hulls would be targeted. It accused both countries of hosting U.S. forces and of taking part in the attacks.

We warn all crews aboard oil tankers in the vicinity of ports in Kuwait and Bahrain, which host these terrorists and are partners in their hostile actions, to immediately leave their vessels, whether they are at anchor or docked at the ports, as the vessels will be targeted.

IRGC Navy, statement carried by IRIB, Sept. 8

That order is aimed at third-country mariners, not at a U.S. destroyer’s combat systems. Kuwait and Bahrain are load ports for crude that has to leave the Gulf somehow. Telling those crews to run is a way to halt liftings without having to sink a Navy escort.

UKMTO’s Sept. 8 advisory sat in the same band. It said a merchant vessel in the strait had been “subject to interaction as part of ongoing military activity in the region,” and that authorities were investigating. The notice named no ship and gave no further detail, which is how a lot of Hormuz reporting now reads: something happened to a commercial hull, and the navies will not agree on what.

Why Merchant Hulls Became the Reachable Target

CENTCOM’s line since Sept. 5 has been that every IRGC attempt against U.S. Navy warships has failed. The IRGC’s line is that it is hitting American vessels and the tankers around them. Footage posted as proof of “U.S.-linked” tanker hits has been read, in at least one widely shared clip from the Sept. 5 round, as an Iranian hull on fire. The pattern that keeps repeating is a missed shot at a warship, a U.S. strike on named IRGC carriers, and an Iranian claim that commercial traffic paid the bill.

That is a second fight, running beside the one both militaries describe. Washington is trying to bankrupt the IRGC’s oil fleet. Tehran is trying to make the strait too expensive for everyone else. The first campaign needs hits on ships Iran actually owns. The second only needs crews, insurers, and port states to believe the next projectile is meant for them.

The IRGC has been practicing that second campaign for weeks, turning tankers around on the southern Hormuz corridor with radio warnings, declaring a prohibited zone, and treating the IMO traffic-separation scheme as optional. The Sept. 9 statement simply scaled the same method: name a round number of merchant ships, pair it with two U.S. vessels, and announce that Hormuz is under IRGC management.

The Strait That Carried 20 Million Barrels a Day

On paper, this is still the world’s main oil gate. The International Energy Agency’s Hormuz factsheet, last updated in February, puts 2025 throughput at an average of 20 million barrels per day of crude and products, about 25% of seaborne oil trade, with 80% of that oil headed for Asia. Nearly 15 million barrels a day of that flow was crude. About 5 million was products. At its narrowest the strait is 29 nautical miles across, with 2-mile inbound and outbound channels and a 2-mile buffer.

HORMUZ OIL EXPORTS IN 2025, IEA

Only Saudi Arabia and the UAE have working pipelines that can skip the strait, and the IEA puts spare bypass capacity at 3.5 to 5.5 million barrels a day. Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and Iran still need the waterway for almost all of their exports. Qatar and UAE LNG that transits Hormuz is about a fifth of global LNG trade. China, India, and Japan are the crude buyers most exposed.

Traffic is already nowhere near that 2025 baseline. Kpler’s counts showed an average of 10 commodity ships a day through the strait over the 10 days into early September, the lowest since May, against more than 100 vessels a day before the war that began on Feb. 28. Brent crude traded near $99 a barrel on Sept. 8 as the Kharg-area strikes landed. United Against Nuclear Iran, which tracks the U.S. maritime blockade reinstated on July 14, said U.S. forces had redirected 94 commercial vessels trying to run that blockade as of Sept. 7, disabled 3 that did not comply, and boarded 2.

U.S. Warships Evade Missiles as Brent Nears $99

Put the two scoreboards on one page and they do not match. CENTCOM has named eight Iranian crude carriers destroyed or disabled since Sept. 5 and has said, repeatedly, that IRGC shots at U.S. warships missed. The IRGC has claimed two U.S. vessels, eight tankers, ten other ships, and separate damage to DDG-119 and DDG-53, without producing a matching list of merchant names.

THE UNMATCHED TALLY

• U.S. warships: CENTCOM says the targeted ship evaded two ballistic-missile attacks in two days and stayed on patrol, with zero personnel harmed.
• IRGC oil fleet: Eight named crude carriers struck since Sept. 5, crews ordered off before the hits.
• Everyone else’s hulls: An unnamed merchant “interaction” in the UKMTO log, an IRGC warning to leave Kuwaiti and Bahraini piers, and a 20-ship claim with no identities attached.

The oil price is answering the third column. Ten commodity ships a day through a strait that used to take more than 100 is already a closure in slow motion. Adding an IRGC announcement that eight tankers and ten “violators” have just been hit, and that crews in Kuwait and Bahrain should run, is how a force that cannot put a missile on a destroyer still charges a toll on the cargo.

The IRGC Navy closed its Sept. 9 statement by saying the Strait of Hormuz remains under its monitoring and management. CENTCOM said the U.S. warship that was fired on is still in regional waters.