The US military has escalated its Iran maritime campaign, boarding the sanctioned tanker Tifani in international waters in what officials described as the first such move against Iranian crude exports since Washington’s blockade began.
The tanker was reportedly near Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean and close to fully loaded with 2 million barrels of crude bound for Singapore, while the Pentagon said the boarding occurred “without incident.”
The vessel itself was already on Washington’s radar well before this week. Treasury and OFAC records show Tifani was previously sanctioned as part of the US campaign against Iran’s shadow fleet, with Treasury saying the targeted networks had collectively transported and purchased billions of dollars’ worth of Iranian oil.
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Last week, Reuters reported that a US destroyer interdicted two oil tankers leaving Iran and ordered them to turn around a day after President Donald Trump’s blockade took effect. Days after, the US seized an Iranian cargo ship that it said tried to run the blockade.
By Tuesday, the operation had expanded again, this time to a crude tanker in the Indian Ocean.
AP said the tanker was captured in the Bay of Bengal and that a US defense official said the military would decide within four days whether to tow the vessel to the US or transfer it to another country. The same report said the Pentagon described the Tifani as “stateless” even though it was also described as Botswana-flagged.
The Pentagon is also signaling that this will not stop at the Gulf. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine said last week that enforcement would extend beyond Iranian waters and even beyond US Central Command’s theater, with US forces prepared to pursue Iranian-linked vessels in other regions, including the Pacific.
The seizure lands in a market already strained by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has largely blocked the strait again to all ships but its own, cutting off a route that typically carries one-fifth of global supply.
Tehran has said it will not negotiate while Washington enforces a blockade of its ports, and Iranian officials have warned of firmer retaliation if attacked again. Trump, meanwhile, said he did not want to extend the truce and that the US military was “raring to go” if talks fail.
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