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The Iranian Revolutionary Guard announced that its forces targeted a ship on Monday that was attempting to cross the Strait of Hormuz, causing it to catch fire.
The Revolutionary Guard Navy said in a statement that "a giant oil tanker was struck in the Strait of Hormuz and caught fire."
The statement added that the targeted ship attempted to cross "after disabling its identification and tracking devices," and that it ignored "warnings issued by the Revolutionary Guard Navy."
Iran has restricted navigation in this vital strait for global energy supplies since the outbreak of the war in the Middle East with US-Israeli strikes on it on February 28. In response, Washington imposed a blockade on Iranian ports.
Navigation and control in the strait have become one of the main points of friction between Tehran and Washington, as the former insists on supervising transit movement through a route it designates, while the latter and several other parties reject this matter.
Since the beginning of the war, Iran has repeatedly targeted ships that attempted to cross the Strait of Hormuz without obtaining permission from it.
Naval Commander of the Revolutionary Guard Ali Azmaei had warned over the weekend that any ship deliberately turning off its tracking devices to avoid detection while crossing the strait would be considered a "hostile target."
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