A U.S.-flagged tanker continued through the Strait of Hormuz under American military escort after armed Iranian boats approached and ordered it to stop. U.S. Central Command said the vessels and an Iranian drone threatened to board and seize the Stena Imperative before a Navy destroyer intervened.
British security company Vanguard Tech initially said three pairs of small boats linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps hailed the tanker by radio about 16 nautical miles north of Oman. They instructed its captain to stop the engines and prepare for boarding. The ship instead increased speed and held its course.
Central Command gave a different count, reporting two IRGC boats and one Mohajer drone approaching at high speed. The command said the guided-missile destroyer USS McFaul responded immediately and escorted the tanker with defensive air support from the U.S. Air Force. A spokesperson said the intervention de-escalated the situation.
The discrepancy in the number of boats remains unresolved in the supplied evidence. Both accounts agree on the central sequence: armed Iranian units approached, the tanker did not stop, and a U.S. warship provided an escort. Vanguard Tech said the Stena Imperative never entered Iranian territorial waters.
Iranian state-linked Fars news agency cited unnamed officials denying that version. They claimed a vessel had been intercepted after entering Iran’s waters without permission. MarineTraffic tracking cited by CBS placed the Stena Imperative in Oman’s maritime economic zone during its transit, supporting the security company’s location account but not resolving every aspect of the confrontation.
The UK Maritime Trade Operations agency had earlier warned vessels about numerous armed craft hailing a ship by VHF radio. It did not identify nationalities but said the targeted vessel ignored the request and remained on its planned route. UKMTO urged cautious transit and said authorities were investigating.
The tanker remained bound for Sitrah, Bahrain, with arrival expected February 5. Its ability to continue limited the immediate disruption, but the incident highlighted security risk in a channel essential to global oil and liquefied-natural-gas shipments.
The encounter occurred during a tense U.S.-Iran standoff and before expected talks. An IRGC official had threatened to close Hormuz if the United States attacked Iran, and the Guards held exercises in the waterway during the preceding weekend. At least 10 U.S. warships, including an aircraft carrier and five destroyers, had been moving toward the region.
Central Command also said U.S. forces shot down an Iranian Shahed-139 drone that flew toward the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea earlier that day. That was a separate incident, though together the episodes showed how quickly routine movement could become entangled in the military confrontation.
The Stena Imperative reached safety without a reported exchange of fire. What remains contested is why Iranian forces approached and where they believed the tanker was operating, questions that the American, British and Iranian accounts answer differently.
