The Maritime Executive are reporting that two more Iranian tankers have been disabled by F/A-18 aircraft in the Gulf of Oman, this time from USS George H W Bush, these disablements have been confirmed by CENTCOM. No names have been released of the tankers as yet, but the tactics have changed in that instead or hitting the rudder or engineroom, the latest method to disable the ships is to shoot their stacks off. No updates on any of the now 3 tankers to have had parts shot off them in regard to casualties or if they have been seized by USN personnel. I shall keep an eye on this and update as / when information is released.
Further to this story can be found :
U.S. Navy Fighter Jet Disables Two More Iranian Tankers (Maritime Executive - May 8, 2026)
It should be noted that the stack is not the cleanest part of the ship, shooting them off the ship can potentially cause pollution in what is a very fragile area when it comes to sealife.
As to the Strait of Hormuz, nothing appears to be moving in either direction this morning. The Strait remains closed to all traffic, the only ships moving are small cargo ships belonging to Iran that are in the Khasab-Larak / Ramchah line. There has still been no sighting on AIS of the CMA CGM San Antonio, which is concerning.
One slightly unusual aspect are that ships (and there are a few hundred of them) that are using Mina Saqr, Ras-al-Khaimah, Umm Al Quwain, Sharjah, Dubai and Jebel Ali anchorages have almost all gone dark on AIS, possibly a case of if they cannot be seen, they cannot be hit should the hostilities restart.
Traffic seems to be moving freely through Bab-al-Mandab. No incidents have been reported, it does have to be noted that there are 3 or 4 patrol type ships out of Djibouti in the area. There has been a report of a dhow that had been taken by Somalian pirates and had been confirmed as being used to attack general shipping in the Gulf of Aden / Bab-al-Mandab area has now been abandoned by the piracy group due to the increase of civilian and military activity working to stop such incidents. The dhow had effectively been the mother ship for skiffs and at least one VLCC approached at the end of April this year.
On the image of Bab-el-Mandab below taken a few minutes ago, the pale blue arrows are Djibouti patrols
