US Navy redirects 100th cargo ship during naval blockade of Iran in Strait of Hormuz.

The U.S. Navy has now redirected 100 commercial vessels during its expanding blockade campaign against Iran, a milestone announced by United States Central Command on May 23, 2026, that signals Washington’s shift from protecting Gulf shipping lanes to actively disrupting Iranian maritime commerce across the wider Indian Ocean region. The operation has transformed the Strait of Hormuz into a contested naval battlespace where commercial access increasingly depends on military escort, political alignment, and the ability to survive simultaneous U.S. interdiction and Iranian coercion.

The blockade has evolved beyond traditional maritime security operations into a large-scale naval containment campaign involving carrier strike groups, destroyers, Marine boarding teams, and carrier aviation conducting live interdiction strikes against Iranian-linked shipping. By targeting tankers, cargo ships, and shadow-fleet logistics networks while Iran responds with drones, mines, missile threats, and electronic disruption, the crisis is reshaping global energy security and demonstrating how future naval conflicts can weaponize commercial shipping routes without requiring direct fleet-on-fleet combat.

Related topic: U.S. Launches Precision Strikes on Iranian Missile Sites and Mine Boats to Secure Strait of Hormuz

For this naval blockade against Iran, the U.S. deployed more than 15,000 personnel, over 200 aircraft and warships, two carrier strike groups, amphibious forces, P-8 Poseidon patrol aircraft, and multiple Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. (Picture source: US Navy)

On May 23, 2026, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that U.S. naval forces enforcing the blockade of Iran had redirected 100 commercial vessels since operations began on April 13 after the collapse of U.S.-Iran negotiations in Islamabad on April 11-12 and the failure of the April 8 ceasefire to restore unrestricted navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. CENTCOM deployed more than 15,000 personnel, over 200 aircraft and warships, two carrier strike groups, amphibious forces, P-8 Poseidon patrol aircraft, and multiple Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, while reporting four disabled vessels and 26 humanitarian ships permitted through blockade lines.

By May 2026, the Strait of Hormuz crisis evolved into a dual blockade structure in which Iranian restrictions constrained international shipping in the Gulf while U.S. interdiction operations targeted Iranian-linked maritime commerce across the Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, Arabian Sea, and Indian Ocean. Before the conflict, roughly 20 million barrels of oil per day and 20% of global LNG trade transited Hormuz, but by April and May, traffic had shifted toward intermittent escorted convoys, politically approved crossings, and irregular tanker movements. 

The Hormuz crisis originated after U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran on February 28, 2026, targeting missile infrastructure, naval facilities, IRGC command centers, underground storage complexes, and senior Iranian leadership, including Ali Khamenei. Iran responded by restricting access through Hormuz, while the IRGC formally declared the strait closed to “unfriendly nations” on March 4 but maintained selective access for traffic associated with China, India, Pakistan, Russia, Malaysia, and Thailand. Maritime traffic through Hormuz subsequently fell by roughly 70% during March as shipping firms suspended Gulf transits after Iranian forces combined drone attacks, sea mines, AIS spoofing, GNSS jamming, missile threats, and fast-boat harassment against commercial shipping.

The April 8 ceasefire failed to normalize maritime conditions because Iran continued inspecting vessels, taxing approved crossings, and routing traffic through a controlled corridor north of Larak Island, with transit fees reportedly reaching $1-2 million per voyage. Following the collapse of the Islamabad talks on April 12, Washington abandoned its earlier strategy centered on escort and mine-clearing operations toward direct interdiction of Iranian maritime trade. The 2026 U.S. naval blockade of Iran operates under CENTCOM command led by Adm. Brad Cooper, with support from Adm. Samuel Paparo and INDOPACOM, as enforcement expanded beyond the Persian Gulf into wider Indian Ocean transit routes.

U.S. naval forces assigned to the operation include the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group, USS George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group, Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group, the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, carrier aviation squadrons, guided-missile destroyers, and helicopter-borne boarding teams. Initial enforcement emphasized warning and diversion procedures directed at vessels approaching Iranian ports, but by mid-April, operations expanded into the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean against tankers that had departed Iranian ports before the blockade entered into force.

Parallel operations included mine-clearance activity associated with Project Freedom, launched in early May to facilitate controlled merchant evacuations from Gulf waters before being terminated on May 6. Surveillance increasingly focused on vessels operating under reflagged registrations, stateless configurations, or ownership structures linked to Iranian export networks and shadow fleet logistics. This operational threshold changed on April 19, 2026, when the Iranian-flagged cargo ship Touska continued toward Bandar Abbas despite repeated warnings from the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Spruance.

After shadowing the vessel for nearly six hours, the U.S. destroyer fired multiple 5-inch Mark 45 naval gun rounds into the engine compartment, disabling propulsion before Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit boarded the ship in the Gulf of Oman. On April 21, U.S. forces intercepted the VLCC MT Tifani in the Indian Ocean after linking its cargo to Iranian export networks, while additional tanker seizures followed near southern India, western India, and Malaysia. In early May, carrier-based F/A-18E/F Super Hornets conducted the first strafing attacks against the Iranian-flagged tankers M/T Hasna, M/T Sea Star III, and M/T Sevda in the Gulf of Oman, marking the first direct use of carrier aviation in maritime interdiction operations during the crisis.

By late May, U.S. forces had targeted container ships, VLCCs, propane carriers, and stateless commercial vessels associated with Iranian maritime commerce. For its part, Iran avoided direct fleet engagements against U.S. carrier groups and instead relied on drones, anti-ship missiles, sea mines, RPGs, electronic navigation disruption systems, and fast attack craft to increase commercial uncertainty and insurance risk across the Gulf maritime landscape. On April 22, Iranian forces seized the container ships MSC Francesca and Epaminondas after damaging them with gunfire and RPG attacks, while additional incidents targeted shipping near Oman, Fujairah, Doha approaches, and Ras Tanura.

Tehran simultaneously maintained selective transit exemptions for Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Russian, Malaysian, and Thai-linked traffic, using maritime access as both an economic and diplomatic instrument. On May 8, however, Iranian naval forces seized the Chinese-owned tanker Ocean Koi, accusing the vessel of disrupting Iranian oil exports despite earlier tolerance toward Chinese shipping. Several tankers also bypassed U.S. blockade lines by operating closer to Pakistani and Indian coastlines, suppressing AIS transponders, or using indirect routing patterns through the Strait of Malacca and South Asian maritime corridors.

Commercial shipping conditions deteriorated rapidly in the Strait of Hormuz because vessel operators faced simultaneous exposure to Iranian interdiction, U.S. enforcement operations, elevated insurance premiums, and unpredictable transit conditions through Hormuz and adjacent waters. By late April, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) estimated that nearly 2,000 ships and 20,000 mariners remained stranded inside the Gulf because operators could not secure acceptable war-risk insurance or reliable transit windows. Major commercial operators, including Maersk, CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd, and MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company, suspended or sharply reduced Gulf transits during the peak escalation period.

In the same time, tanker traffic periodically fell close to zero during early March and again after renewed Iranian restrictions between April 18 and April 20. Cruise ship operations disappeared after repeated threats against civilian shipping, including direct VHF warnings against Mein Schiff 4, while Indian escort operations under Operation Sankalp and U.S. escort missions linked to Project Freedom enabled only limited evacuations and controlled movements. Concretely, the Gulf progressively shifted from a high-density commercial corridor into a militarized maritime operating environment governed by escort availability, insurance viability, and politically conditioned access.

The economic impact extended beyond Iranian export losses because Hormuz normally handles roughly one-quarter of global seaborne oil trade and one-fifth of LNG shipments. Brent crude exceeded $100 per barrel on March 8 and later approached $126 during the peak disruption phase, while Gulf producers reduced exports because tanker availability, maritime access, and insurance constraints emerged simultaneously. Saudi Arabia increased its use of the East-West Crude Oil Pipeline toward Yanbu, while the UAE redirected exports through Fujairah.

Iraq, for its part, examined expanded Mediterranean export routes, but combined bypass capacity remained below half normal Hormuz throughput. The U.S. Department of Defense estimated that 53 million barrels of Iranian oil became trapped aboard 31 tankers between April 13 and May 1 as blockade enforcement constrained export activity from Iranian ports. Iran simultaneously expanded overland export activity toward Pakistan, Iraq, and Central Asia while relying on covert maritime routing patterns close to South Asian coastlines to preserve portions of its oil trade outside U.S. interception zones.

Written by Jérôme Brahy

Jérôme Brahy is a defense analyst and documentalist at Army Recognition. He specializes in naval modernization, aviation, drones, armored vehicles, and artillery, with a focus on strategic developments in the United States, China, Ukraine, Russia, Türkiye, and Belgium. His analyses go beyond the facts, providing context, identifying key actors, and explaining why defense news matters on a global scale.