U.S. attacks in and around the Strait of Hormuz left 10 Iranian sailors wounded and five others missing, a regional official was quoted as saying Friday by Iranian state media.
U.S. Central Command said Iranian forces launched missiles, drones and small boats at three U.S. warships on Thursday, but that none were hit, and that U.S. forces retaliated with “self-defense strikes” on bases near Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz.
“During the Americans’ aggressive actions last night in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz and the Makran Sea [Gulf of Oman], a cargo vessel near the waters of Minab was struck and caught fire,” the semi-official Mehr news agency quoted Mohammad Radmehr, an official in the southern Hormozgan province, as saying Friday. “Ten injured sailors have been transferred to hospital, and local groups and search teams are trying to learn the fate of the other [five] sailors.”
Iran’s military claims it attacked the U.S. warships after they fired on “an Iranian oil tanker” moving from Iran’s coastal waters, as well as another ship entering the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of the United Arab Emirates.
