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A recent announcement has alerted all vessels planning to navigate the Strait of Hormuz to consider alternative routes. This precautionary measure aims to uphold maritime safety and prevent potential collisions with sea mines.
Alongside the alert, detailed guidance has been provided, outlining safe entry and exit pathways for ships navigating through this strategic waterway.
Concerns are mounting that this new advisory could discourage maritime traffic from entering the strait, a crucial passageway for global trade.
Reports indicate that hundreds of ships remain trapped, as the ongoing conflict continues to see strikes from both factions, despite discussions of a ceasefire.
Even the mere suggestion of sea mines poses a significant threat, potentially bringing commerce in the strait to a standstill once again.
“Sea mines offer distinct advantages as a maritime weapon. They require little training or specialist support. They are easy to deploy: they can be placed in the water from civilian boats, small craft or submarines,” retired Royal Australian Navy mine warfare specialis Andy Perry wrote.
“And unlike many other naval weapons, they can be laid without direct combat interaction with an adversary, remaining dormant until activated by a passing vessels.”
The US Naval Institute estimates Iran may have between 5000 to 6000 mines.
Perry said mine warfare doesn’t need to leave a trail of sunken ships to be considered a successful military strategy.
“Maritime access through the strait can be shaped less by firepower and more by caution, uncertainty, and slow responses of mine countermeasures forces,” he added.
The US military has previously claimed it “eliminated” Iranian mine-laying vessels near the Strait of Hormuz earlier this month.
US President Donald Trump threatened severe consequences for Iran if it deployed mines along the oil chokepoint.
“If Iran has put out any mines in the Hormuz Strait, and we have no reports of them doing so, we want them removed, IMMEDIATELY!” he wrote on Truth Social.
He said the US was deploying the same technology used against drug traffickers to “permanently eliminate any boat or ship attempting to mine the Hormuz Strait.”
Trump later claimed the US had hit “and completely destroyed” a number of “inactive mine laying boats and/or ships”.
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