US Navy carried out secret four-month mine-clearing operation in Strait of Hormuz - FT
The U.S. Navy conducted a covert four-month operation to locate and destroy Iranian mines in the Strait of Hormuz, deploying Navy SEAL divers, robotic boats and specialized underwater craft, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the mission.
The operation was carried out mostly at night as the United States exchanged strikes with Iran in and around the strategically vital waterway.
Since the conflict began, Tehran has claimed to have laid mines in international and Omani waters in the strait. The International Maritime Organization said in June that about 80 mines had been placed in key shipping lanes.
U.S. President Donald Trump said last week that “all mines” in the strait's international waters had been removed or detonated, a claim later confirmed by the U.S. military.
The announcement surprised maritime observers because three U.S. ships based in the Gulf and normally used for mine countermeasures had been operating outside the region, in the Indian and Pacific oceans, since at least early June.
Instead of relying on large minesweeping vessels, small teams of U.S. Navy divers operated from inflatable-hulled boats, according to the FT. Robotic boats and submersibles equipped with high-resolution sonar were used to locate mines while minimizing risks to personnel.
Retired U.S. Navy Capt. Bill Hamblet, who previously operated in the Gulf, explained that such searches are typically followed by a diver entering the water, approaching a mine and attaching an explosive charge to destroy it.
Some of the operations may also have been staged from the USS Miguel Keith, a floating expeditionary mobile base assigned to U.S. naval forces in the Gulf, Hamblet said.
No U.S. casualties have been reported in connection with the mine-clearing operation, according to experts cited by the FT.
Is the strait clear?
Shipowners and security advisers told the FT they believed the southern half of the strait, close to the coast of Oman and along the route where the U.S. has been escorting ships, may genuinely have been cleared.
They were less confident that the entire Strait of Hormuz was free of mines.
On the same day Trump declared the strait mine-free, the U.S. Navy-directed Joint Maritime Information Center warned of a “continued risk of drifting or uncharted mines.”
Iran has also rejected Washington's claims. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said in late August that “no one except Iran knows the location of these mines.”
The threat alone has had a major impact on commercial shipping. Only a small number of commercial vessels have been passing through the strait since the conflict began, while insurance costs have risen as much as tenfold from prewar levels. For a typical supertanker, coverage can cost around $10 million, according to the FT.
Even if existing mines have been removed, U.S. and maritime experts remain concerned that Iran could lay new ones. The United States has warned that vessels attempting to deploy additional mines would be destroyed.
No mine attacks during the conflict have been independently confirmed by maritime authorities, despite Iranian claims. Analysts told the FT that the greater challenge may now be the continuing uncertainty over whether the waterway is safe.
For Iran, maintaining the perception that it can threaten the Strait of Hormuz provides strategic leverage. For the United States, restoring commercial shipping may depend less on proving that every mine has been removed than on convincing shipowners that the route is safe enough to use.