Hormuz Tanker Attacks Hit Wartime Weekly High
by: Marcus Webb

Hormuz Tanker Attack Tracker

Last updated: Oct. 17, 2026. Newest incidents first.

Attacks on ships in and around the Strait of Hormuz have run at their highest pace of the U.S. war with Iran since late September, and they are no longer limited to tankers. Two ships were reported sunk on Oct. 14: a Singapore-flagged container ship hit the day before, and a bulk carrier struck in September. Three maritime security sources counted at least 12 attacks on oil, liquefied natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas tankers in the week of Sept. 28 to Oct. 5, Reuters reported Oct. 7, the most of any week since the war began Feb. 28. UKMTO has recorded 15 more attacks between Oct. 6 and Oct. 14, according to Al Jazeera, and said Oct. 14 that it had logged 20 reported attacks in the strait since Oct. 1, ABC News and Marine Insight reported. An AFP tally of security data put October’s count at 23, almost double the war’s monthly average, and CBS News attributed the same figure of 23 to UKMTO on Oct. 17. The attacks have also spread down the Gulf: on Oct. 16, two tankers were hit off Jubail on Saudi Arabia’s east coast, one of them by a rocket-propelled grenade fired from a small boat, UKMTO said. Attacks this month have left two seafarers missing and more than a dozen injured, according to the IMO. The International Maritime Organization has logged more than 100 security incidents and at least 24 seafarer deaths since the war began, gCaptain reported Oct. 14. CNBC put the IMO’s tally at 100 ships attacked as of Oct. 9. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have warned that any tanker that ignores what they call the strait’s “security and rules” will meet the same fate. On Oct. 15, Iran’s military said another tanker had caught fire in the Gulf of Oman after entering a zone Iran has declared off-limits.

Weekly attack counts

Week Maritime security sources International Maritime Organization Kpler
Week ended Oct. 16 UKMTO: 10 reported, one ship sunk (AP); at least 12 confirmed (Al Jazeera) Not reported Not reported
Sept. 28 to Oct. 5 At least 12, from three sources (Reuters) 9 incidents as of Oct. 7 (Reuters); 11 tankers in the week ended Oct. 4 (CNBC, Oct. 9) 10 tankers Sept. 28 to Oct. 4, plus one on Oct. 5
Week of July 13 (previous IMO high) Not reported 8 Not reported

The counts differ because the IMO verifies and reports incidents differently from private security firms, according to The National, and Reuters noted the UN agency takes longer to record them. The IMO’s count for the week rose from nine incidents in Reuters’ Oct. 7 report to 11 tankers in IMO data cited by CNBC two days later. Many attacks are now reported days late. Four of the six UKMTO warnings for Oct. 11 were time-late reports, gCaptain noted. For October so far, the Financial Times counted at least 18 vessels attacked between Oct. 1 and Oct. 11, according to the Sunday Guardian.

The pace has not slowed since. At least 10 vessels were attacked from Oct. 11 to Oct. 13, according to an AFP count drawn from Vanguard, IMO and UKMTO data, including six on Oct. 11, the most in a single day of the war. CNN counted nine UKMTO-reported attacks in or near the strait from Oct. 12 through Oct. 14.

UKMTO’s own weekly figures now come with a warning. In its overview for the week ended Oct. 16, the agency said it was struggling to report the true number of attacks because most ships that are hit refuse to report to it, and that it knew of more incidents it could not verify, Al Jazeera and the AP reported. The AP counted 10 attacks reported to UKMTO that week. Al Jazeera put the number of confirmed attacks at 12 or more and gave UKMTO’s tally of what happened to the ships: half reached port or continued on, one sank, two were disabled, and three were damaged or had an unconfirmed outcome. October is now the busiest month for reported attacks since March, the AP reported.

Incident log

Oct. 17. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said a supertanker carrying more than 2 million barrels of crude struck a mine and caught fire while trying to pass through the strait illegally, according to AFP and Al Jazeera. The Guards said the ship had switched off its tracking systems and was crossing with U.S. support, and released video of a burning vessel. They did not say where it happened or name the ship, and the claim has not been independently confirmed. Central Command says it has cleared the strait of mines and that ships are being hit by projectiles, Al Jazeera reported.

Oct. 16. A crude tanker, the MT ST 3, was struck by a projectile in the strait, India’s ports and shipping minister Sarbananda Sonowal said. All 15 Indian crew on board were safe, according to The National, Gulf News and TASS. Off Saudi Arabia, an unknown projectile struck a tanker 68 nautical miles northeast of Jubail, and its crew was evacuated safely, UKMTO said in a report Saturday, according to Reuters and AFP. Vanguard identified that ship as the Marshall Islands-flagged crude tanker Safeen Principal and said it lost power and had an engine-room fire, AFP reported. UKMTO issued a second report that a tanker 78 nautical miles northeast of Jubail had been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired from a small boat at 1922 GMT, damaging its aft port quarter, with all crew safe, according to Reuters and Arab Times. Reuters could not immediately establish whether the two reports described the same incident. Al Jazeera called the grenade attack a new type of attack.

Oct. 15. Iran’s military said an oil tanker caught fire in the Gulf of Oman while trying to pass through an area Iran has declared prohibited, with its tracking systems switched off, according to state television as reported by AFP. Euronews, citing the Mehr news agency, said the navy’s monitoring teams found it in the eastern sector of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran did not name the ship, its flag or the condition of its crew, and it was not clear what caused the fire or who was responsible. UKMTO had not reported the incident as of this update. The Revolutionary Guards set the zone’s boundaries in September, covering part of the Sea of Oman and part of the Arabian Sea along the approach to the strait, Arab News reported. The Greek maritime monitor Marisks said it had confirmed three merchant ships struck by unidentified projectiles on Oct. 13, all sailing with their tracking systems off, and that three of the ships hit that week had the same operator, CBS News reported. An Iranian army rear admiral, Habibollah Sayyari, told reporters the strait was “closed” and that any transit had to be coordinated with Iran, according to Iran’s IRNA news agency as cited by CBS.

Oct. 14. The Antigua and Barbuda-flagged bulk carrier Cape Dao sank near the strait, IMO data showed, weeks after a projectile hit it on Sept. 23, Reuters reported. One crew member was killed in that strike, maritime sources told Reuters. The Singapore-registered container ship GFS Giselle was struck the same day (Singapore time) and suffered hull damage. It reached a safe anchorage under its own power with all 22 crew safe, gCaptain reported. The AP also reported that the second Singapore ship reached safety. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards navy said a container ship carrying 2,500 containers sank after hitting a naval mine on what it called an illegal route, the AP reported. The AP could not verify the claim or say whether it was the GFS Pride. CNN reported that Iran’s Press TV attributed the GFS Pride’s sinking to a mine on an unauthorized route. A U.S. official told ABC News that Iran had lied and that the ship was likely hit by a missile, and the maritime security firm Marisks said there was no independent evidence of a mine, Marine Insight reported. It was the first time in the war that Iran had reported a ship sinking after hitting a mine, the AP reported. President Donald Trump had declared the strait cleared of mines at the end of August. Separately, Iranian domestic media reported a fire on another tanker near the strait that had switched off its tracking equipment, Euronews reported. No other outlet we checked has reported it.

Oct. 13. The Singapore-flagged container ship GFS Pride caught fire after being hit while transiting the strait and later sank, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore said. All 21 crew were evacuated with no injuries. Reuters and gCaptain count it as at least the second sinking of the war, after the container ship Safeen Prestige, hit in March. Singapore’s authority called the attacks “unprovoked, unjustifiable, and a breach of international law.” UKMTO separately reported a container ship and a tanker struck by unknown projectiles in the strait, Gulf News and Al Jazeera reported. Two later UKMTO reports described two more container ships hit that day with minor damage and no casualties, according to gCaptain. It isn’t clear which of the UKMTO reports, if any, cover the two Singapore ships. The security firm Vanguard named four ships struck that day, the GFS Pride, the GFS Giselle, the Barbados-flagged tanker Alfonso and the Marshall Islands-flagged Al Saadiyat, AFP reported, and said the Alfonso’s fate was unknown. Vanguard dates the GFS Giselle strike to Oct. 13; Singapore’s authority gave Oct. 14.

Oct. 12. UKMTO said a product tanker was struck by an unknown projectile while transiting the strait, Middle East Eye reported, and Democracy Now reported that all crew were safe. The Revolutionary Guards said they struck a supertanker trying to transit the strait with its transponders switched off, The National reported, and called it the third ship they had hit in two days, according to Democracy Now. It isn’t confirmed that the Guards’ claim and the UKMTO report describe the same ship.

Oct. 11. UKMTO issued delayed reports of six vessels struck in a single day, five tankers and a container ship, according to The National and gCaptain. Five of the incidents were in the strait and one was near Oman’s Sohar anchorage, where UKMTO confirmed a tanker had been hit by a drone. Separately, the UAE said its coastguard rescued 22 crew members after a fire on an unnamed tanker near its shores, Al Jazeera reported. The National reported that the Panama-flagged crude carrier Gem No 2 was struck by a drone near the UAE and its 22 crew were safe.

Oct. 10. The Revolutionary Guards’ navy said an unnamed crude supertanker hit a naval mine and caught fire while using an unauthorized route with its navigation systems off. Shipping analyst Sal Mercogliano said video circulating with the claim did not appear to show a mine strike, The National reported. The same day, a U.S. fighter jet disabled the Panama-flagged bulk carrier Ocean Molica in the Gulf of Oman after it tried to get past the blockade, U.S. Central Command said, according to gCaptain and Türkiye Today.

Oct. 8. The maritime intelligence firm Vanguard reported a fire on a tanker about 40 kilometers off Fujairah, likely the Marshall Islands-flagged Dhalgout, according to Euronews. UKMTO had not recorded the incident and the cause was not clear.

Oct. 7. Several projectiles struck the oil and chemical tanker Acers about 51 nautical miles north of Madinat ash Shamal in Qatar, according to UKMTO. It was the first attack in that area in more than six months. Iran did not formally claim either the Acers or the Fujairah incident, Euronews reported.

Oct. 6. An unknown projectile struck the Panama-flagged tanker On Peace in the strait and injured 12 crew members, India’s foreign ministry said.

Oct. 5. The Revolutionary Guards hailed a tanker entering the strait and ordered it to turn around or risk attack, according to the UK Maritime Trade Operations center (UKMTO).

Oct. 4. The U.S. Navy-led Joint Maritime Information Center said attacks, attempted attacks and harassment by the Revolutionary Guards had persisted, including drone overflights and hailing by VHF radio.

Oil flows and the U.S. blockade

Gulf exports excluding Iran recovered to more than 81% of pre-war levels in September, and Middle East crude exports topped pre-war levels on 14 days that month, according to the ship-tracking firm Kpler. Kpler estimates about 40% of the region’s oil exports now bypass the strait. Crude passing through the strait averaged 8.5 million barrels per day in the week ended Oct. 7, about 40% below normal, according to Kpler data cited by CNBC.

The daily numbers swing hard. Kpler counted nearly 20.8 million barrels through the strait on Oct. 8 and only 2.9 million on Oct. 11, the lowest this month, against a pre-war average of 17.1 million barrels a day, Al Jazeera reported. Reports of Kpler’s figure for Oct. 12 differ. CNN gave 4.147 million barrels, less than a quarter of pre-war levels, while Marine Insight reported about 3 million. Marine Insight also cited Kpler for the same 8.5 million barrel daily average in the week ended Oct. 12, and put total Middle East oil shipments, including pipelines to the Gulf of Oman and the Red Sea, at 14 million barrels a day, nearly 20% below pre-war levels. Central Command said U.S. forces helped Gulf partners move more than 19 million barrels through the strait on Oct. 12, according to Al Jazeera and gCaptain. Kpler’s measure of all oil flows through the strait averaged 11.6 million barrels a day in the seven days to Oct. 13, about 68% of the pre-war baseline, Al Jazeera and MeidasTouch reported. Brent crude touched $110 a barrel on Oct. 16, its first time at that level since May. The Joint Maritime Information Center put traffic at about 29 transits a day over the 72 hours before its Oct. 11 advisory, against a historical average of about 138, gCaptain reported, and said independent tracking showed fewer.

Both sides say they control the strait. Iran’s navy said Oct. 13 it had deployed units east of the strait and across the Sea of Oman and the Arabian Sea for real-time surveillance, and warned ships not to switch off their transponders, Al Jazeera reported, citing Press TV. Iranian officials told Reuters that Tehran changed its tactics against ships roughly 10 days earlier, in part to keep oil prices high and influence the U.S. midterm elections. Central Command answered on X that “American forces and regional partners clearly control the Strait of Hormuz.” A U.S. military official told Reuters that Revolutionary Guards spotters were calling in targets from dhows and that U.S. forces had destroyed one such boat after ordering its crew off, Al Jazeera reported. Central Command confirmed on Oct. 14 that its forces had destroyed an Iran-affiliated dhow in the Gulf of Oman the week before, saying it had been conducting surveillance and targeting U.S. Navy ships and that its crew was removed first, CBS News reported.

Central Command’s commander, Adm. Brad Cooper, said in a video on Oct. 16 that about 400 ships and more than 100 million barrels of oil had moved through the strait in the past week, and that the waterway is “controlled by the United States and our regional partners, not Iran,” Al Jazeera and MeidasTouch reported. He blamed the rise in attacks on “desperation” by the Revolutionary Guards, according to Al Jazeera. UKMTO’s count for the past seven days was lower, at 125 ships outbound and 129 inbound, Al Jazeera reported. Cooper didn’t say what dates his figure covered, MeidasTouch noted. The U.S. military also said the GFS Pride was hit by a Revolutionary Guards projectile, not a mine as Iran claimed, according to Al Jazeera. In Tehran, an army spokesman, Mohammad Akraminia, said the strait would reopen if the United States left the region, CBS News reported.

The attacks are also raising the cost of moving oil. On Oct. 15, Reuters reported, citing an unnamed U.S. official, that the administration is considering easing sanctions on Iran’s shadow-fleet tankers to bring down record-high shipping costs. Companies would be allowed, with Treasury approval, to carry non-sanctioned oil on previously sanctioned ships, CBS News reported. The firm Energy Aspects told clients the move was unlikely to lower freight rates much, because many of the tankers are old and insurers remain bound by EU and U.K. restrictions.

Since the U.S. reimposed its naval blockade of Iran’s southern ports in mid-July, U.S. Central Command says its forces have disabled four commercial vessels, turned around 135 ships and destroyed 10 tankers linked with Iran, Al Jazeera reported Oct. 11. The U.S. military now says the blockade has cost Iran $25 billion in oil export income, according to Al Jazeera. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the week before that commercial oil flows had largely recovered despite the attacks, according to The National.

Sources

Filed under: Joint Maritime Information Center / International Maritime Organization / UKMTO

Leave a Reply