American drones fired missiles into the engine rooms of two Iranian government tankers on Tuesday, according to U.S. officials who spoke to Axios, in the first strikes carried out under a “tanker for tanker” policy approved by President Donald Trump. Breitbart reported the account.
The ships were anchored off Iran’s coast, north of the U.S. blockade line. This was the first time U.S. forces went after Iranian tankers as payback for attacks on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, rather than as part of enforcing the blockade itself, the officials said.
TankerTrackers.com studied footage released by U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and judged both vessels to be empty. It said it could not yet establish who owned them.
The policy follows two attacks on commercial tankers carrying Saudi crude through the strait.
A wider operation
CENTCOM said the tanker strikes were one piece of a larger operation launched after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) tried to attack commercial ships in the strait. U.S. forces hit roughly 100 targets across Iran, among them air-defense and radar systems, maritime facilities, mine-laying capabilities and communications sites.
Officials said the campaign “bought at least a month” of reduced threat levels for shipping. About 40 commercial vessels moved into or out of the Persian Gulf on Tuesday carrying millions of barrels of oil. U.S. forces intercepted several anti-ship cruise missiles and drones fired by the IRGC at ships in the strait, and none reached a target.
Iran’s response
Tehran answered with ballistic missiles and drones aimed at American forces across the region. U.S. officials put the missile count at roughly 25. About half reached Jordanian airspace, where 10 were intercepted and three fell in remote areas without causing casualties. Around two dozen drones were launched at U.S. facilities in Bahrain, and most were shot down. More missiles and drones went toward American forces in Kuwait, and two drones fired at a U.S. base in Erbil, Iraq, were intercepted.
American officials describe the broader approach as periodically “mowing the lawn”: striking systems Iran has repaired or replaced.
Trump said afterward that he prefers the current position to pushing Tehran back to the negotiating table. “I like our position now much better, with almost total control of the Hormuz Strait, and their economy totally collapsing,” he wrote on Truth Social. “They are just playing out the inevitable.”
One U.S. official told Axios: “The Iranians have not only lost control of the Strait of Hormuz, they have also lost control over the conflict. They got nothing today.”
