The U.S. Navy has turned back 27 ships trying to enter or exit Iranian ports since an American blockade outside the contested Strait of Hormuz began about a week ago, the military’s Central Command said on Monday.
A U.S. military official also said on Monday that a team of Marines was searching and scanning a large number of containers aboard the Touska, an Iranian cargo ship that the Navy disabled and seized in the Gulf of Oman on Sunday after it tried to evade the blockade.
It was the first time a vessel was reported to have tried to evade the U.S.-imposed blockade on any ship entering or exiting Iranian ports since it took effect last week.
American officials will determine what to do with the disabled vessel once the search is completed, a U.S. military official said on Monday, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters. One option would be to tow the stricken ship to Oman, independent specialists said. An alternative would be to let the Touska steam to an Iranian port, if it can.
The ship’s crew will be returning to Iran soon, a second U.S. military official said.
“The message is out that most ships are not wanting to go out there,” Kevin Donegan, a retired vice admiral and former top Navy commander in the Middle East, said in an interview on Monday.
The Touska’s captain had ignored multiple radioed American warnings to halt.
The guided-missile destroyer Spruance, one of more than a dozen Navy warships enforcing the U.S. blockade, ordered the vessel’s crew to evacuate its engine room. The Spruance then fired several rounds from its Mk-45 gun into the ship’s propulsion system as it steamed toward the port of Bandar Abbas in Iran, Central Command said in a statement that included a video of the firing.