IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez has condemned what he called "attacks over the past two days against several ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz," describing them as reckless and placing innocent seafarers in grave danger. He went further than a standard condemnation: as long as crew safety cannot be assured, he urged flag States, shipowners, operators and relevant authorities to avoid exposing seafarers to unnecessary danger by transiting the strait at all. He said nearly 6,000 seafarers remain stranded aboard vessels unable to depart the Persian Gulf safely [1].

The immediate trigger is a strike UKMTO confirmed on a tanker hit by an unknown projectile at about 2100 UTC Monday, east of the Musandam Peninsula off the small port of Limah. UKMTO has not named the vessel. Security consultancy Vanguard Tech reported a fire that has since been extinguished. Iran's state broadcaster IRIB acknowledged one attack on one tanker, saying it came after "repeated warnings." Martin Kelly of EOS Risk Group identified the ship as the laden LNG carrier Al Rekayyat (IMO 9397339), an identification Bloomberg said it confirmed with multiple shipping sources; Kelly also suggested a second attack on a laden ULCC, which remains uncorroborated. Bloomberg commodity analyst Javier Blas said Iran appears to be pushing all Hormuz traffic into its own lanes away from the Omani side, noting six Japanese oil tankers crossed on one day and two more the next [2].

Separately, Iranian state media said an unnamed "violating" oil tanker struck a mine in the strait while navigating outside the Persian Gulf Strait Authority's designated route through Iranian waters. That claim rests on Iranian outlets alone; none of these reports independently confirms it. Iran has issued navigational warnings asserting that the IMO traffic separation scheme and Omani waters to the south are mined, claims Infomarine says were previously confirmed by U.S. officials [3].

Traffic data shows why the waterway is still treated as an extreme-risk zone. Windward reported a near-complete halt even for Iran-linked shipping: one LPG carrier transited the Iranian lane overnight Saturday and one Iranian-linked product tanker left the Gulf, with no vessels using the southern corridor. Lloyd's List Intelligence counted 102 transits last week and 126 the week before, against 130 or more per day before the war; TankerTrackers.com put the 28-day average at 5 million barrels a day exiting the strait. U.S. officials cite higher figures — Vice President JD Vance said about 15 million barrels were escorted Wednesday and Energy Secretary Chris Wright cited 17 million barrels Monday, versus roughly 20 million prewar — while Brent traded above $95 on Thursday against about $72 before the conflict [4] [3].

Diplomacy is moving in parallel. U.S. sources told CNN and the Washington Post that American military operations are on hold to give talks room, and Iranian diplomats have reopened discussions with Oman on "common principles and operational mechanisms for the safe passage" of vessels. Tehran says it remains open to further talks with Washington but conditions them on recognition of its claim to sovereignty over the strait. Vance, meanwhile, said the U.S. had a "responsibility" to carry out this week's strikes because Iran kept targeting commercial vessels, while declining to call the six-month conflict a war [3] [4].