Drone Attack Targets Two Fishing Boats at Kargan Port in Southern Iran

Al-Taj News –

Hormozgan Governorate said that two fishing boats were subjected to a drone attack on Monday evening carried out by U.S. forces near the Bandar Kargan area, according to the Iranian Fars News Agency.

The governorate added that a number of fishermen who were aboard the two boats went missing, noting that search and rescue operations had begun to locate them.

The incident comes amid escalating tensions in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz in recent days. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) reported on Sunday that a vessel was hit by a projectile while transiting the strait, while an Iranian cargo ship near Qeshm Island was attacked.

Vessel tracking data showed on Monday that commercial maritime traffic through Hormuz fell to fewer than 10 vessels per day over the weekend, compared with around 125 large commercial vessels per day before the war broke out in late February, at a time when the strait serves as a passageway for around 20% of global crude oil and liquefied natural gas supplies.

The U.S. Central Command had announced on September 8 that it had destroyed five Iranian oil tankers, days after announcing that it had targeted three other tankers, as part of escalating confrontations with Iran in the region.

The maritime escalation coincides with a stalled diplomatic track regarding the strait, after Oman postponed a regional meeting scheduled for Monday to discuss arrangements related to navigation in Hormuz.