An American Jet Disables a Cargo Ship in the Gulf of Oman
A United States fighter fired a precision munition into the stern of the Panama-flagged MV Ocean Molica, also known as the Arika Sun, after the crew “ignored repeated warnings and attempted to run the ongoing naval blockade against Iran”. Central Command says the strike disabled the propulsion without harming the crew.
Since the blockade resumed on 14 July, Central Command says it has disabled four commercial vessels, turned around 135 ships and destroyed ten tankers linked to what it calls the Revolutionary Guard’s multibillion-dollar shadow network. The British maritime trade operations agency acknowledged the incident, reporting “an incident involving a tanker and military forces in the Gulf of Oman”. Senator Chris Murphy put the objection on the record: “What is this all for? Why are taxpayers paying billions to hit commercial ships?… Apparently the goal is to gain leverage in order to convince the Iranians to let us pay them billions to return everything to the way it all was before the war. What a disaster.” A separate incident should not be merged with this one: the Revolutionary Guard says it struck the gas carrier NV Sunshine in the Strait of Hormuz for taking an unauthorised route, and claims Iranian forces have “taken control of the administration of the strait”. The maritime agency logged an outbound tanker hit on the port side by an unknown projectile with a fire aboard and the crew safe. One is America stopping a ship; the other is Iran hitting one. Both happened in the same stretch of water in the same twenty-four hours, which is the point.