US forces disabled an unladen oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman on Monday after it attempted to sail to an Iranian port in violation of the ongoing blockade against Iran, the US military said.
US Central Command said in a post on social media that the Marivex, a Palau-flagged vessel, was transiting international waters in the Gulf of Oman towards Iran when it was targeted.
An F/A-18 Super Hornet from the USS Abraham Lincoln fired a precision munition into the ship's engineering and steering spaces after the crew failed to comply with directions from US forces, CENTCOM said.
"Marivex is no longer sailing to Iran," it said.
The tanker had 24 Indian crew members on board, India's shipping ministry said, adding that a fire had been reported on the vessel but that all were safe.
"We are co-ordinating with the Ministry of External Affairs, our Indian missions abroad, the Indian Navy, and the Ministry of Defence to ensure their safety," Opesh Kumar Sharma, a director in the federal port and shipping ministry, told a press conference. He had earlier identified the vessel as registered in Madagascar.
The US blockade of Iranian ports began in April after Iran severely curtailed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a major global oil and gas route. CENTCOM has said the restrictions apply to vessels going to or from Iran, not ships transiting the strait to non-Iranian destinations.
Marivex has been previously sanctioned by the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, an Indian source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
OFAC, which enforces US sanctions, has since February 2025 imposed sanctions on about 1,000 Iran-related individuals, vessels and aircraft as part of a campaign to exert maximum economic pressure against Iran's shadow banking, money-laundering and sanctions-evasion networks.
The vessel turned away on three occasions after repeated warnings by the US Navy, the source said, adding that the ship made another attempt to run past the blockade by using Omani territorial waters on Monday.
The Indian embassy in Oman said its officials were in touch with Omani authorities over the rescue and safety of the sailors. The source told Reuters that all crew members had been rescued with the help of Omani authorities.
(Reporting by Nidhi Verma and Hritam Mukherjee; Additional Reporting by Tanvi Mehta and Gnaneshwar Rajan Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Sanjeev Miglani)
