Renewed Iran-US fighting lifts oil prices back to July levels
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Tuesday that its naval forces “captured one of the most modern, unmanned, and smart submarines of the US terrorist army at the entrance to the strait of Hormuz,” according to Iranian state television. The IRGC described the seizure as a “complex intelligence and operational action at dawn” and said images of the submersible would be released “in the coming hours.”
US Navy Capt Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for US Central Command, said in a statement that the drone had “malfunctioned” more than a day earlier while it was surveilling regional waters. Hawkins described the submersible as “defective” and an older model “that neither collected sensitive data nor carried any classified sonar or radar equipment.” He added that “operations in area waters continue.”
The Guardian reported that numerous merchant ships belonging to Iran and other countries remained at anchor in the strait.
Iran has maintained a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz since the war broke out more than six months ago, while the US has imposed its own blockade of Iranian ports. Under normal conditions, the strait carries roughly one-fifth of global oil and gas shipments.
After a month of relative calm in August, Iran and the US have resumed exchanges of fire, sending global oil prices back up to levels last seen in July.
According to The Guardian, Trump has struggled to end the war, which the paper described as unpopular and which has claimed the lives of 18 US service members.
Iranian authorities have previously put the overall death toll from US and Israeli strikes in the thousands, figures that outside observers, including US-based monitoring groups, have broadly corroborated.