IRGC says it struck the Togo-flagged tanker Trend in the Strait of Hormuz

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy said early Friday that it had struck the Togo-flagged oil tanker Trend in the Strait of Hormuz and brought the ship to a halt after a fire broke out on board. The statement, carried by IRNA and Sepah News, came from Rear Admiral Ali Azmaei, the force's naval commander.

Azmaei said the tanker tried to cross the strait "at the instigation and through the deception" of the United States military. He warned that unauthorised passage "will have no outcome other than the destruction of the offending vessel." The IRGC said its sailors still control the waterway and will not allow what it calls aggressors through.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre reported a security incident in the strait on Thursday, 16 nautical miles northeast of Khasab in Oman's Musandam peninsula. UKMTO did not name the ship. It is not confirmed that the report and the Trend are the same event.

Tehran tightened passage rules after US and Israeli strikes on Iran in late February. Commercial ships are told to use routes set by the Islamic Republic and to obtain authorisation from the IRGC Navy. Iran wants tolls for transit. Ships that ignore the preferred corridor are treated as violators. The Persian Gulf Strait Authority, the body that manages traffic under this system, has warned insurers and classification societies against covering vessels on an updated blacklist.

Windward's daily maritime file for 16 September recorded 12 AIS-visible crossings, double the previous day's six. Three very large crude carriers of 310 metres or more crossed dark and inbound in ballast on the southern corridor, which handled about 80 percent of tanker traffic that day. Only three ships broadcast AIS for the full transit: a Barbados-flagged bulk carrier and two Palau-flagged tankers. Two more switched the signal off mid-crossing. Of 78 vessels on Iran's blacklist, about 85 percent were tankers and about 40 percent had Emirati links. Liberia was the most common flag, at 38 percent. Most blacklisted ships kept trading with AIS off.

The Trend incident follows a separate fight over the Panama-flagged tanker El Gaia. IRGC video released on 15 September showed the damaged ship. Tehran said it hit naval mines south of the strait. US Central Command said Iran struck the vessel twice: a missile last month that left it inoperable, and a drone over the weekend while it drifted off Oman. Windward logged that attack about 103 nautical miles northeast of Musandam on 12 September.

The strait is about 55 kilometres at its narrowest. In ordinary years it carried around 21 million barrels of oil a day. That flow has been broken for months by the war, the US blockade, and Iran's permit system. Brent crude has been trading near $103 a barrel after a week that also saw Houthi and Saudi strikes around Yemen and damage to Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline to the Red Sea. Riyadh has offered extra crude via Oman.

China's foreign minister Wang Yi told Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi that Beijing would safeguard Iran's "rights and interests" and did not want the fight to spill further into Yemen and the Red Sea. President Donald Trump told reporters this week that an end to the Iran war "may be near" and that he had heard from Tehran "directly." Iranian officials have not confirmed a deal. A Khamenei adviser said this week that Hormuz would stay closed until Trump left office.

No independent confirmation of casualties on the Trend was available on Friday morning. Flag-of-convenience registries in Togo and Panama have featured in several Hormuz cases this year because they offer cover for ships that major flags will not touch. Insurers that stay on those hulls now face an explicit warning from the authority that writes Iran's transit list. The next test is whether other tankers keep running dark on the southern corridor, or whether Friday's fire changes the price of that bet.