U.S. Disables Two IRGC Tankers and Sinks a Third After Iran Missiles Miss Navy Warships (Video)

U.S. Central Command said Saturday that American forces struck three Iranian crude oil tankers after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched ballistic missiles at two U.S. Navy warships patrolling regional waters. A U.S. aircraft carrier and a guided-missile destroyer evaded the attack. No American personnel were harmed.

CENTCOM identified the targets as the M/T Downy off Kharg Island, the M/T Stark 1 near Jask, and the unladen M/T Kylo — also known as the Noxen — in the Gulf of Oman. U.S. forces permanently disabled Downy and Stark 1. Kylo was struck in multiple locations after the crew was directed to abandon ship and was later described by the command as completely destroyed. Kharg Island handles the bulk of Iran’s crude exports.

“Let the message to the IRGC be clear: If you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose an even higher economic cost — taking out three of yours,” Adm. Brad Cooper, the CENTCOM commander, said in the command’s Saturday release. “We will not hesitate to defend American forces, and if necessary, destroy Iran’s limited and exposed oil fleet.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted the same day that the rule is simple. “If Iran shoots at U.S. ships, we will destroy (and sink) their oil tankers. All they have to do is stop shooting at @USNavy.” CENTCOM said the three carriers are part of a multibillion-dollar shadow network that funds the IRGC and its regional proxies and that Iran has no practical way to defend them.

The tanker hits follow a week of renewed fighting over the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. officials said Iran tried last weekend to seed the strait with mines, which American forces removed or detonated, and later fired eight missiles at a U.S. base in Jordan that were all knocked down. President Donald Trump said earlier in the week that the United States was striking Iranian targets near the strait in retaliation and warned that further Iranian retaliation would be met “at a much harder and higher level.”

Iranian outlets affiliated with the Guard acknowledged a strike on a tanker near Kharg and said the crew survived and was being evacuated. CENTCOM released video of the Kylo strike. U.S. officials told Air & Space Forces Magazine the Saturday tanker attack was carried out by a mix of Air Force and Navy fighters and drones.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has separately argued that Iran is already in an economic squeeze, with roughly 30 million barrels of Iranian crude still on the water and Chinese purchases down sharply from earlier peaks. Saturday’s tanker strikes put that economic campaign on the same page as the kinetic one: shoot at the Navy, lose the ships that pay for the shooting.

Whether Tehran answers at sea, at Kharg, or at Pickaxe Mountain — the underground complex Trump said Friday the United States may hit “very soon” if activity is detected there — will set the next 48 hours. For now the official record is this: Iran fired, the Navy was not hit, and three IRGC oil carriers are out of the fight.