Iran’s foreign ministry further warned Washington it would retaliate against any strike, and an IRGC spokesperson threatened to target undersea internet cables in the Gulf in another escalation of the ongoing war of words between Tehran and Washington.
Iran's IRGC said two oil tankers struck mines the elite paramilitary had laid in the Strait of Hormuz, setting both vessels ablaze, as Tehran threatened further attacks on shipping and cutting undersea cables while promising to unveil new weapons in its arsenal.
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The IRGC said in a statement that the tankers tried to use what Iran unilaterally designates an unauthorised route through the strait's southern section, near the Omani coast.
"With the explosion of mines laid by the IRGC Navy in the illegal passage south of the Strait of Hormuz, two offending tankers were set on fire and brought to a standstill," the IRGC statement said. Neither vessel was named nor was the precise location disclosed.
Tehran has no recognised authority under international maritime law to restrict or authorise passage through the Strait of Hormuz, which is subject to the right of transit passage under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) reported on Tuesday that it had received an account of "an incident between an oil tanker and military forces" on Monday, some 121 nautical miles east of the Omani city of Duqm. UKMTO reported no damage or casualties and did not identify the vessel.
The IRGC also claimed that their air defence system had shot down a US MQ-9 drone over the strait on Monday night. A US official, speaking to US media outlets, dismissed the claim as untrue.
Some Iranian domestic outlets, including the state-affiliated Fars agency, reported that a US airstrike hit a naval base in Konarak in Sistan and Baluchistan province on Monday, wounding two military personnel and targeting an air defence installation. Washington has not commented on the report.
IRGC spokesperson Hossein Mojabi threatened on Monday to target undersea internet cables in the Gulf and the strait, saying "new weapons will be unveiled" with the aim of, in his words, removing US military presence from the region.
'We do not leave any blow unanswered'
Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said Tehran would retaliate against any US attack.
"In practice we have shown that we absolutely do not leave any blow unanswered," he said in response to reports that Washington had urged Iran to hold back in the event of a strike on Kuh Kalang.
"A US attack on Kuh Kalang and Iran not responding is fantasy and empty talk," Baghaei said.
The IRGC-affiliated Tasnim news agency quoted an unnamed Iranian security source as saying uncertainty over decision-making authority in Washington was complicating negotiations, naming Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump administration negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner as figures whose respective roles remained unclear to Iranian officials.
Arsenio Dominguez, secretary-general of the International Maritime Organisation, said about 6,000 seafarers have been stranded in the strait since the war began. He criticised shipowners for continuing to send crews into the area.
US media have previously reported that the Pentagon was deploying the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group and the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit to the Middle East, adding approximately 10,000 sailors and Marines to the region by the end of November. Washington has not confirmed the deployment.
Roughly one-fifth of the world's oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz before the war that began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February. Both Tehran and Washington have implemented blockades in the strait, while Iran has repeatedly targeted cargo vessels using the southern section of the waterway.