A United States military aircraft has fired on and disabled a commercial cargo ship in the Gulf of Oman after its crew ignored repeated warnings and tried several times to break the American naval blockade of Iran, US Central Command said on Saturday.
The St Kitts-flagged bulk carrier M/V Huda was struck by precision munitions fired at its stern after the crew was directed to abandon the targeted spaces, the command said in a statement. The vessel had visited an Iranian port and was trying to leave regional waters when it was hit, about 18 nautical miles east of Khor Fakkan on the east coast of the United Arab Emirates, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency.
The Huda is a dry bulk carrier of 24,993 deadweight tonnes, built in 1999 and 159 metres long, under Turkish management. Central Command gave no account of the crew’s condition or of what the ship was carrying, and did not say how many people were on board. The maritime tracking service Vesseltracker reported that all crew members were safe, though that has not been independently confirmed.
The strike is the fifth time since July that US forces have disabled a merchant vessel for refusing to comply with the blockade, Central Command said. In the same period, 147 commercial vessels that obeyed instructions were redirected rather than struck. The command estimates the blockade has prevented Iran from exporting more than $25 billion of crude oil.
The incident came on the same day the US military announced Task Force Iron Gate, a new unit that will target the movement of advanced weapons and other sanctioned material across Iran’s land borders and through the Caspian Sea, extending the pressure campaign beyond the sea blockade.
The confrontation at sea is unfolding against a backdrop of rising tension. President Donald Trump has been threatening a new offensive against Iran, while Tehran has warned of broad retaliation against Gulf infrastructure, leaving countries across the region on edge. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards separately claimed that two oil tankers had caught fire after hitting mines, one east of the Strait of Hormuz and one inside the waterway, a claim that has not been independently verified.
This is a separate incident from the burning cargo ship in the Gulf of Oman from which the United Arab Emirates rescued 22 crew members earlier this weekend; no link between the two vessels has been reported.
Sources: Reuters, “US military says it disabled cargo vessel in Gulf of Oman”, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-military-says-it-disabled-cargo-vessel-gulf-oman-2026-11-07/ ; US Central Command statement via Reuters.
