Iran International reports that the scope of US strikes on Iranian tankers may be wider than CENTCOM has publicly acknowledged, and has obtained recordings of the warnings given to one crew before its ship was hit [1].

CENTCOM said it "permanently disabled" the M/T Downy off Kharg Island and the M/T Stark 1 near Jask after the IRGC launched ballistic missiles toward a US aircraft carrier and a guided-missile destroyer. The warships evaded the attacks and no US personnel were harmed, it said. A third vessel, the unladen M/T Kylo, also known as Noxen, was destroyed in the Gulf of Oman after its crew was directed to abandon ship [1].

The new element is what sits outside that statement. TankerTrackers.com said on Saturday that National Iranian Tanker Company vessels Sinopa and Hawk had also been struck "a few days ago" off Jask in the Gulf of Oman, and that both appeared to contain some oil cargo when hit. CENTCOM has not publicly identified those two vessels as targets, so the claim rests on the tracker alone [1].

Iran International also published video it says it obtained exclusively, filmed from a nearby vessel, capturing three VHF transmissions to Stark 1. "Motor Tanker STARK 1, this is the United States military aircraft. I am preparing to fire at your stern. You have 3 minutes to clear the crew from the stern of your ship," the first says; a second cuts the deadline to one minute, and a third states: "This was your final warning... get into your lifeboats and abandon the ship immediately." Crew members can be heard speaking Persian and Urdu between the messages [1].

Tasnim, a news agency affiliated with the IRGC, reported that an Iranian oil tanker was struck near Kharg Island on Saturday morning with no casualties, and, citing an Iranian state television reporter in Jask, reported attacks on two tankers in waters near that city, one of them carrying oil [1].

Kharg lies about 16 miles off Iran's coast and roughly 300 miles northwest of the Strait of Hormuz; before the war around 90% of Iranian crude exports passed through the island. Saturday's strike hit a tanker rather than the island's terminals, storage tanks or pipelines, but brought US military action into the waters immediately around Iran's main oil-export hub [1]. CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper framed the operation as retaliation: "If you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose an even higher economic cost — taking out three of yours" [1].