• US sinks five Iranian oil tankers; Tehran fires ballistic missiles at Jordan base
• IRGC expands prohibited maritime zone beyond Strait of Hormuz
• Rubio says Iran will lose tankers every time they hit US naval ships
• Trump predicts war will end ‘immediately’ after midterm elections
• IAEA refers Iran to UNSC over ‘non-compliance’
CAIRO: Iran said it attacked more than a dozen vessels trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday after the US sank five Iranian oil tankers, in the biggest declared wave of tit-for-tat attacks on shipping by both sides since the start of the six-month-old war.
Iran also said it had fired ballistic missiles at a base used by US forces in Jordan and also announced an expansion of a no-go zone outside the strategic waterway it has blockaded for months.
The attacks sent the price of oil surging, with benchmark Brent crude futures breaching $100 a barrel for the first time since July. At least one seafarer aboard a tanker was reported killed and another listed as missing.
Attacks by both sides since the end of August have shattered a month of relative calm, with the US and Iran hitting military, shipping and energy assets.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Wednesday they attacked two US vessels, eight oil tankers, and 10 “non-compliant vessels” that were trying to pass through the route crucial for oil and gas trade, Iranian state media reported.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said “several” vessels in the Gulf of Oman and the Gulf were “subject to disabling fire as part of ongoing military activity in the region”.
The IRGC also said on Wednesday a new “prohibited zone” would cover waters many miles beyond the Strait of Hormuz and apply to ships as far as the Arabian Sea.
Iran had first announced the “prohibited zone” earlier this week as it continued talks with Oman over a temporary shipping route through the strait.
Iran would soon release maps of a new, enlarged off-limits zone at sea that would extend as far as Chabahar on the far reaches of Iran’s coast near Pakistan, the Guards said.
“If a vessel enters that area without coordination, it will be subject to our sanctions,” Guards spokesman Hossein Mohebi told state television.
“It means, for example, that if it later wants to come and use the Strait of Hormuz, if it wants to receive services somewhere, such as insurance or other related services, we will refrain from providing those services,” he continued.
Tehran has demanded that vessels seek permission to transit the strait, insisting there will be no return to the pre-war system of unrestricted navigation.
The Americans said they destroyed five Iranian oil tankers overnight, releasing video of ships ablaze before they sank.
The US military’s Central Command called its attacks a response to the IRGC targeting a US Navy warship twice with ballistic missiles over the previous two days. No Americans were harmed, the US said.
Washington has announced a new policy of attacking Iranian tankers in retaliation for fire that threatens its warships and says it has hit 10 so far over the past week.
“Iran continues to try to hit US naval ships, and for every time they do that or try to do that, they’re going to lose tankers,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters during a visit to Colombia.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said he expected the war to end “immediately” after the US midterm elections in November, claiming that Iran could no longer sustain the conflict.
“I think the war will end immediately after the election” because Iran “can’t hold out any longer,” Trump told reporters, accusing Tehran of being “desperate to try and affect” the vote.
Iran said it fired on two US ships and eight tankers in response.
One seafarer was killed aboard the oil products tanker Hercules Star while at anchorage off Dubai and another crew member was missing, the vessel’s charterer, Peninsula, said. Maritime security sources said it may have been hit by a drone.
Two Iraqi port officials said a tanker carrying two million barrels of fuel oil, the New Andros, had caught fire after being struck by a drone in Iraqi waters.
There were no reports of casualties among the 22 crew.
The Iraqi government confirmed the incident and said the tanker had been used for storage.
Iran also threatened oil tankers in Kuwaiti and Bahraini ports, according to a statement carried by state media. A maritime security source reported a liquefied natural gas tanker was damaged in the Emirati port of Khor Fakkan.
The IRGC also said on Wednesday it had fired ballistic missiles at a base used by US forces near Al Azraq, in eastern Jordan. Jordan said its air defences had intercepted 18 of the 20 Iranian missiles, with two falling harmlessly in unpopulated areas.
Nuclear referral
The IRGC said the war could be brought to an end if Washington met its conditions, which included demands on the wars in Lebanon and Yemen.
“It must… refrain from renewed threats, withdraw the Israeli regime’s army from Lebanon, end the blockade of Yemen, release $24 billion in Iran’s frozen assets and refrain from any interference in the country’s nuclear and missile capabilities,” Mohebi said, according to Fars news agency.
But as Washington tries to choke off Iran economically, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board of governors on Wednesday voted to refer Iran to the UN Security Council over its nuclear “non-compliance”, in a diplomatic move that piles pressure on the Islamic republic.
The resolution was adopted by 23 votes in favour, three votes against and eight abstentions, they said. Russia, China and Niger voted against it.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi lashed out against the passage of the resolution.
In a post on X, he slammed attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities under safeguards, the disruption of the verification process and the use of “that very disruption as a pretext to issue a resolution in the Board of Governors”.
“With these fabrications, you can neither compensate for the failure of your policies and actions nor achieve anything in the Security Council,” Gharibabadi added.
Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2026
