Iran has been launching dozens of drones and missiles at commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz each week, largely out of the public eye, though it has often failed to strike its targets, confidential data shared with The New York Times by a Western security official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters shows.
Since the beginning of August, Iran has launched about 30 drone attacks and 10 anti-ship missile attacks per week against commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, according to the data shared with The Times by the official.
At least four commercial ships have been hit by Iran in the past 10 days, the official said.
A tally of reports by a monitoring group run by the British Navy show that since Sept. 10, at least 13 ships, most of them oil tankers, had been struck by projectiles or debris from projectiles. (Those reports may be incomplete because they are based on voluntary reports by ship crews.) While the reports do not specify who was responsible for the attacks, maritime experts say the details suggest many were Iranian.
On Wednesday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps for the first time appeared to confirm it was behind the near-daily sounds of explosions heard from Iran’s southern coast, saying it was striking targets in the Strait of Hormuz every 24 hours.
“We prevent them from passing, but for some time now, America has not responded,” a spokesman for the Revolutionary Guards said in a state news interview.
The aggression shows that even as oil exports from the Middle East have rebounded in recent weeks, shipping through the waterway remains risky, as Iran jostles to keep control of one of its biggest sources of leverage.
“Negotiations aren’t going anywhere. Neither side is really budging. So it’s a standoff,” said Gregory Brew, an Iran analyst at the Eurasia Group.
He said that the violence in the strait “speaks to the position that both sides are in: Neither is looking to aggressively escalate the conflict.” But both, he said, want to control the waterway.
