The US Navy reportedly engaged in a risky, top-secret four-month mission to clear mines from the bottom of the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian forces have set mines across the crucial waterway, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil supply traverses, ever since the US and Israel attacked the country back in February.
As of June an estimated 80 mines had been placed in the vital shipping lanes, according to the International Maritime Organization.
But last week, President Donald Trump announced that ‘all mines’ in the strait’s international waters had been removed or detonated as he declared the narrow waterway an ‘American territory.’
The stunning announcement came after Navy SEAL divers worked under the cover of darkness for four months in an effort to clear the mines, the Financial Times reports.
They worked in small teams at night using inflatable-hulled crafts and located the mines on the bottom of the strait with the help of robot boats and submersibles operating towed sonar arrays.
Those devices, containing high-resolution, side-view sensors, can detect objects like mines on the bottom of the ocean – allowing forces to sweep large areas for the explosives with minimal risk to crew members.
Still, divers would then have to approach the mines underwater and place a charge on it to destroy it.
Alternatively, they could use robot submersibles like the UK’s SeaFox or the newer US AN/ASQ-235 Anchorfish to destroy the mines with explosives, according to demining expert Bryan Clark.
The US Navy engaged in a covert four-month operation to remove mines from the Strait of Hormuz. A motorboat is pictured passing commercial vessels in the waterway on Monday
President Donald Trump last week announced that ‘all mines’ in the strait’s international waters had been removed or detonated
Either way, it is ‘an extremely time-consuming process,’ Nitya Labh, associate fellow at Chatham House told the Financial Times.
‘They are doing, essentially, active bomb detonation underwater,’ she noted.
Clark also explained that ‘mine-clearing forces are vulnerable because the operation is slow and their boats or helicopters lack defenses.’
Fortunately, no US casualties have been reported specifically linked to the demining operation.
Ship owners and security advisors now say they are optimistic that the southern half of the strait near Oman’s coast – through which the US has been guiding ships – is genuinely mine-free.
But they expressed their doubts that the entire 104 mile waterway is clear, as only a handful of commercial ships have traveled through the strait since the war began.
And even the threat of mines has forced insurers to jack up their prices, up to 10 times their prewar costs. For a typical supertanker, that could mean insurance costs of about $10 million to traverse the waterway without Iranian permission.
Officials in Tehran have also dismissed the US’s claims that the waterway is mine-free, with Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi saying in late August that ‘no one except Iran knows the location of these mines.’
The US Navy-directed Joint Maritime Information Center further warned there was a ‘continued risk of drifting or unchartered mines’ even as Trump declared the strait mine-free.
US Navy SEALs reportedly worked in small teams at night using inflatable-hulled crafts and located the mines on the bottom of the strait with the help of robot boats and submersibles operating towed sonar array. Navy SEAL candidates are pictured at a training exercise in 2020
The divers could use robot submersibles like the UK’s SeaFox or the newer US AN/ASQ-235 Anchorfish to destroy the mines with explosives
Military analysts note that the Iranian regime has thousands of Maham mines, similar to those used in World War II.
Some sit just below the surface and detonate when a ship hits lead horns on the mine itself, while others detect changes in electromagnetic fields as vessels pass overhead.
Iranian media has since claimed that at least two tankers struck mines in the past week, though no mine attacks have been reported or confirmed by maritime authorities.
An Iranian military spokesman also claimed on Thursday that Tehran has laid more mines close to Oman, near where US forces are directing cargo ships.
Yet on August 30, the US military announced that it struck Iranian rocket launchers preparing to fire sea mines into the strait.
‘It’s hard to know what to believe,’ said Ethan Connell, assistant director of Taiwan Security Monitor and an expert on mines.
‘Iran is certainly trying to re-mine,’ he noted as he acknowledged ‘it’s always possible the [US] Navy missed some.’
Amid the uncertainty, cargo ships have been forced to either comply with Tehran’s recently established Persian Gulf Strait Authority and request permission to pass through the strait – potentially risking US sanctions – or take the route around Oman.
‘The Iranians have realized that their strongest card is the perception that they control the Strait of Hormuz,’ said Bill Hamblet, a retired US Navy captain who often operated in the Gulf.
‘If they can convince the world that they can threaten the strait, that’s their strongest source of strategic leverage.’
On the other hand, the United States does not have to prove that every mine has been removed; it simply needs to establish sufficient confidence that shipping can resume.
That may prove to be a difficult task as about one out of every 30 ships in the strait continue to be attacked by missile and drone strikes.
‘The bigger game is on the information side,’ Hamblet said. ‘That may be as important, if not more important, than what’s actually happening in the water or on the bottom of the strait.’
