According to reports by Iran’s Student News Network, several blasts were reported near Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil hub in the Gulf, on Saturday. Further details about the missile strike, including the identity of the vessel and the circumstances surrounding the attack, were not immediately available.
The reported incident came days after hostilities between the United States and Iran intensified, with the two sides exchanging their heaviest barrage since July on Wednesday. Washington struck Iran’s southern coast, while Tehran targeted US bases across the region.
Five people were killed and at least 60 others were injured on Tuesday night after a missile strike ripped through a wedding celebration in Kuhestak, a coastal village in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province, near the Strait of Hormuz.
The strikes came as the United States renewed its campaign against Iran, with the Central Command (CENTCOM) launching a series of attacks on multiple targets across the country.
When asked on Thursday whether the United States was involved in the strikes on the Iranian wedding, US Vice President JD Vance said: “I will say that the Iranian state media has not been a very good scribe about what’s happened in the conflict thus far, so I’m extremely skeptical of this,” The Guardian reported.
He added that the US never targets civilians in a conflict, adding that “sometimes things happens”.
On September 1, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) launched strikes on multiple targets across Iran, saying they were in response to the “recent attempted attacks by the IRGC against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and against American service members.”
Last week, Trump posted two AI-generated videos suggesting that Iran’s Kharg Island was being attacked, as the US military resumed strikes on Iranian forces and targeted rocket launchers near the Strait of Hormuz on Monday.
Trump shared the videos on Truth Social with the caption, “Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!!”
The first video posted by Trump was AI-generated and showed an airman looking out of an aircraft window as explosions and fires appeared to spread across an oil field.
The deepfake footage showed explosions engulfing an oil storage tank, a docked tanker and other buildings.
Trump then posted another AI-generated video showing a series of missiles striking a huge coastal oilfield and triggering explosions.
Kharg Island is strategically important to Iran because around 90 per cent of the country’s oil exports are processed there. Located in the northern part of the Persian Gulf, the island is home to nearly 20,000 people, most of them oil workers. It also has three major energy infrastructure hubs.
Trump has previously threatened to seize or blow up Kharg Island. However, no such major attack has been launched so far.
The reported missile strike on an Iranian oil tanker off Kharg Island adds to the escalating hostilities around a strategically vital Iranian energy hub, while details of the vessel and the circumstances surrounding the reported attack remain unavailable.
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