Since the operation in Iran began two and a half days ago, and amid extensive strikes against Iranian air defense systems aimed at preserving aerial superiority over the Islamic Republic, U.S. forces have repeatedly targeted the Iranian navy. One of the objectives, as U.S. President Donald Trump declared only this evening (Monday) in a speech at the White House, is the destruction of Iran’s navy. U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth also mentioned this goal, which he said would support the overarching objective of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
“This operation has a clear, devastating and decisive mission: to destroy the missile threat, to destroy the navy,” Hegseth said.
'24 hours of smoke': the path to destroying Iran’s navy
In what appeared to be a marking of U.S. territory in the Gulf of Oman, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced this evening that it had destroyed 11 Iranian vessels there. “Two days ago, the Iranian regime had 11 ships in the Gulf of Oman — today it has none,” the U.S. military wrote, alongside footage of a strike on a vessel.
The U.S. military added: “The Iranian regime has harassed and attacked international shipping in the Gulf of Oman for decades. Those days are over. Freedom of navigation has been a cornerstone of the economic prosperity of the United States and the entire world for more than 80 years. U.S. forces will continue to defend it.”
The announcement of the sinking of 11 vessels comes nearly a day after the U.S. military updated that it had struck an Iranian Jamaran-class corvette that is “now sinking to the bottom of the Gulf of Oman.” The American president shared earlier in the day that an Iranian naval headquarters had also been significantly attacked, adding in a jab: “Other than that, they’re doing very well.”
The path to eliminating the Iranian navy runs through the ships and submarines deployed in the region, as well as through ports and naval headquarters. This evening, new satellite images were published from the port of Bandar Abbas in southern Iran, showing at least four vessels on fire. One of them is the Makran, which Iran launched in 2021 after converting it from an oil tanker and designating it to allow helicopter landings as a forward naval base.
The New York Times reported that for more than 24 hours, smoke had been seen rising from the military vessels, but no rescue attempts by Iran had been recorded. According to the report, among those hit were a warship and a command vessel considered one of the largest ships in the Iranian navy. It was also reported that before the operation began, the Iranian navy had not taken protective measures for its vessels.
Iranian media claimed that the port of Jask in southern Iran was also attacked, and that as a result “about 100 fishing boats caught fire.” Shortly before that, the U.S. military announced that on Saturday it had struck the Iranian drone carrier Shahid Bagheri, a vessel for which Iran released footage only about a month ago amid rising tensions with the United States.
U.S. Central Command made the announcement as part of a statement denying what it said was an Iranian claim that a U.S. aircraft carrier had allegedly been sunk. “The only carrier that has been hit is Shahid Bagheri, an Iranian drone carrier. U.S. forces struck the vessel within hours of the start of Operation Epic Rage,” the American name for the war, it said.
At the end of the first day of the operation, the U.S. military said that among the targets struck were also Iranian navy submarines and anti-ship missile sites.