U.S. military forces on Tuesday struck multiple Iranian oil tankers near Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf and in waters around the port city of Jask east of the Strait of Hormuz, according to U.S. officials and reports from Iranian state media.
“American forces have struck multiple Iranian tankers tied to the IRGC in response to more attempted missile attacks on a US Navy warship,” one U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Al-Monitor. U.S. Central Command did not issue a public statement on the strikes by the time of initial reports and has not yet issued a public comment.
Iran’s Tasnim News Agency reported that a small oil tanker was targeted by U.S. forces off Kharg Island. Iranian state television later said U.S. forces also attacked tankers near Jask, including one near the coast of Yekbeni. State television reported that crews of the vessels near Jask were evacuating by lifeboat and that another tanker was attacked in the Kharg Island anchorage area.
The strikes followed reports of coordinated Iranian projectile attacks on U.S. Navy surface vessels on September 7, after a prior attack on September 6. The Pentagon had not publicly disclosed the September 6 incident at the time of the tanker reports.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the sequence of attacks on U.S. ships.
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🚨 BREAKING: US forces are ACTIVELY STRIKING Iranian oil tankers around Kharg Island, per Fox News
Iran has said they’ll strike American bases in return, but obviously, Iran says *a lot* of things
Pray for American troops in the region tonight 🙏🏻
And for their families, who’ll… https://t.co/7VQv8j7mrb pic.twitter.com/5hmltlMMdf
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) September 8, 2026
Tuesday’s actions marked the latest flare-up in hostilities after several similar incidents over the preceding days. On September 5, U.S. Central Command announced strikes on three Iranian crude oil tankers after what it described as ballistic missile attacks by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on two U.S. Navy warships, an aircraft carrier and a guided-missile destroyer. CENTCOM said the U.S. ships evaded the attacks and that no American personnel were harmed
In its September 5 statement, CENTCOM said it “permanently disabled the IRGC crude oil carriers M/T Downy off the coast of Kharg Island and M/T Stark 1 near Jask” and “completely destroyed the unladen crude oil carrier M/T Kylo (also known as the ‘Noxen’) in the Gulf of Oman, striking the vessel in multiple critical locations to render it inoperable after the crew was directed to abandon ship.” CENTCOM described the vessels as “part of a multibillion-dollar shadow network that funds the IRGC and its regional proxies.”
A spokesperson for Iran’s armed forces headquarters said U.S. bases in the region would be targeted if the United States again struck Iranian oil tankers. After the U.S. actions, the IRGC warned crews of tankers at ports in Kuwait and Bahrain to abandon their vessels or move them away from those locations, stating that countries hosting U.S. forces shared responsibility and that the vessels would be targeted.
No retaliatory strikes have been reported as of this report.
