US military forces opened a navigational passage through the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, sinking six Iranian boats and escorting American-flagged merchant vessels through the waterway. The operation marks the most direct attempt yet to break Iran’s effective closure of the strait, which has remained largely shut since hostilities erupted in late February. Iran simultaneously launched fresh attacks on vessels and energy facilities in the United Arab Emirates, according to officials in Abu Dhabi and Washington.
The latest clash comes three weeks after a ceasefire that took hold in early April. Under the terms that paused full-scale combat, the strait was supposed to remain open to commercial traffic, but Iran has instead maintained what it describes as a security cordon. Multiple shipping companies have kept their vessels away, citing insurance costs that have risen sharply since the conflict began. The American operation represents a deliberate decision to test Iran’s willingness to enforce its blockade through direct confrontation.
Admiral Brad Cooper, the commander of US Central Command, told reporters that American forces had cleared a corridor through the strait free of Iranian mines. He said Iran had launched cruise missiles, drones, and fast attack boats at civilian ships under US military protection, and that American helicopters had engaged and sunk six of the small boats. Cooper added that every threat had been defeated and that two American-flagged merchant ships had successfully transited the strait as part of what the US military has described as an effort to restore freedom of navigation.
The United Arab Emirates, a close American ally, said it had come under direct attack from Iran for the first time since the ceasefire began. The UAE Defence Ministry said its air defence systems had intercepted 15 missiles and four drones fired from Iranian territory. In the eastern emirate of Fujairah, local authorities said a drone had sparked a fire at a critical oil facility, causing three injuries among Indian nationals working at the site. The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre additionally reported two cargo vessels on fire off the UAE coast, though it remains unclear whether those incidents are connected to the same wave of attacks.
Iran did not explicitly claim responsibility for the strikes on the UAE. In deliberately ambiguous language posted to social media early on Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said both the United States and the UAE should be wary of being dragged back into a quagmire. Iranian state television, citing an anonymous military official, said Tehran had no plan to target the UAE or its oil fields, appearing to distance the government from the strikes while stopping short of denying involvement. The official described the attack on the Fujairah oil facility as a consequence of what he called American military adventurism in creating an illegal passage.
The economic stakes of the dispute are substantial. Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which runs between Iranian territory and the Omani coast, has disrupted a waterway that normally carries roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas. Global fuel prices have risen sharply since the strait became effectively impassable, causing concern among European and Asian governments that depend heavily on Persian Gulf energy exports. Breaking Iran’s chokehold would ease those pressures and remove a major source of leverage that Tehran has used in negotiations over its nuclear programme and other disputes with Washington.
The UAE condemned what it called renewed treacherous Iranian aggression and called for an immediate halt to the attacks. Emirati authorities issued four separate missile alerts on Monday urging residents to seek shelter, the first such warnings since the ceasefire began nearly a month earlier. Several commercial aircraft bound for the UAE, which is home to the major international aviation hubs of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, were forced to turn around mid-flight as a precautionary measure. The full extent of the damage at the Fujairah oil facility has not been publicly disclosed, though the emirate is a critical node in the UAE’s energy export infrastructure.
The United States has enforced a separate naval blockade on Iranian ports since April 13, turning back at least 49 commercial ships and warning that companies making payments to Iran for transit rights could face sanctions. American officials have expressed hope that the economic pressure, combined with the blockade, will force Iran to make concessions in the ongoing talks. Iran has put forward a proposal that calls for the lifting of US sanctions, the end of the American naval blockade, a full withdrawal of US forces from the region, and a cessation of all hostile operations, including Israeli military activity in Lebanon.
The latest violence threatens to unravel a ceasefire that, while fragile, had substantially reduced large-scale fighting across the region. Iran has signalled that it prefers to convert the current pause into a permanent end to the war rather than simply extending the ceasefire, but the American military operation and the accompanying Iranian retaliation have introduced new uncertainties. President Donald Trump, who has championed the effort to reopen the strait, warned on Sunday that Iran’s attempts to halt passage will have to be dealt with forcefully, and he described the navigation initiative as a humanitarian imperative for the hundreds of ships and tens of thousands of seafarers stranded in the Persian Gulf.