Latest (Sunday, October 11, evening): Iran’s IRGC Navy claimed a third tanker incident in the strait on Sunday. It said a crude oil supertanker struck a naval mine in the southern part of the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday evening while using an “unauthorized route” with its navigation systems switched off, triggering an explosion and fire in the engine room, per the IRGC statement relayed by Iranian media and JFeed. The IRGC said this was the third time since the previous day that a tanker had struck a mine on an unauthorized route, and warned that ships transiting with navigation and identification systems switched off would be treated as hostile and dealt with “severely and decisively.”
No vessel name was given and no independent outlet has confirmed the incident; one analyst account notes it is unclear whether the IRGC’s claim and other tanker-fire reports describe the same ship or separate incidents. Treat the claim as the IRGC’s narrative until independently corroborated.
India’s statement
India’s shipping minister Sarbananda Sonowal said on X that the MT Petro Dolphin was hit by a drone attack on Sunday at the anchorage for the port of Sohar in northern Oman; nine of the 11 Indian seafarers aboard were rescued and two are missing, with search and rescue under way. Sonowal said a second vessel, the Marshall Islands-flagged M/T Valthera carrying 11 Indian crew, was struck by a projectile in the Strait of Hormuz, sparking a fire, with all crew reported safe. India’s foreign ministry said the “continuing incidents of attacks on shipping in the region remain a cause of deep concern” and reiterated its call for an immediate cessation, noting it had already condemned a projectile strike on a Panama-flagged vessel off Oman earlier in the week.