Two sailors remain missing and 23 others have been rescued after the Panama-flagged oil tanker El Gaia was attacked near Oman’s Musandam peninsula in the Strait of Hormuz. Oman’s Maritime Security Centre said the vessel caught fire in its engine room and was being towed to an Omani port after being targeted 1.3 nautical miles (2.4 kilometers) north of Musandam. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said the tanker struck naval mines while using a restricted and unsafe route, but the US military rejected that account, saying El Gaia was hit by an Iranian missile last month and by a drone over the weekend. The UK Maritime Trade Operations centre separately reported a fire aboard a vessel struck by an unknown projectile early Sunday. The incident follows a separate attack involving the Saudi-owned supertanker Sidr, in which two Filipino sailors were killed. Iran attributed that fire to a naval mine, while Saudi authorities blamed Iran and maritime security firms said projectiles struck the vessel north of Musandam. The International Maritime Organization says at least 22 seafarers have died in 79 confirmed incidents across the Strait of Hormuz and the rest of the Middle East since the US and Israel’s war with Iran began at the end of February. Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency also reported that enemy drones targeted two fishing boats near the Iranian port of Kargan, with several fishermen missing and a search-and-rescue operation under way. Separately, a US Central Command spokesman said US forces destroyed two Iranian small boats after they tried to take a US unmanned surface vessel. The strait, normally carrying a fifth of global oil and gas shipments, has effectively been closed amid Iranian attacks on commercial shipping and a US naval blockade of Iranian ports. A preliminary US-Iran agreement in June to end the war and reopen the waterway collapsed within weeks after attacks on shipping resumed and the blockade was reinstated. Iran has maintained that it will retain some control over the strait and has targeted vessels using a southern route through Omani waters rather than its preferred route through Iranian waters.