Tehran attacked three vessels, including an LNG tanker, on a U.S.-protected southern Hormuz route as Washington weighed a clash that officials said could last days or weeks amid a dispute over shipping lanes.
Iran attacked three ships near the Strait of Hormuz within hours of each other, including a liquefied natural gas tanker, according to people familiar with a White House briefing to President Trump. The vessels were using a southern shipping corridor along Oman's coast that analysts say is protected by the U.S. Navy and has become the focus of a dispute over which Hormuz routes are covered by an interim U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding. U.S. officials, cited separately by Axios and Sina Finance, said the White House was preparing for a possible confrontation lasting from one or two days to as long as a month if Iran keeps attacking commercial ships. Analysts and legal experts said the attacks have raised war risks, reshaped traffic patterns, and renewed concern over disruption at a critical global energy chokepoint, even as hundreds of tankers have recently left the Gulf and helped temper immediate oil-price fears.