Navy SEALs carried out secret operation in the Strait of Hormuz – report

Navy SEALs secretly cleared Iranian mines from the Strait of Hormuz in four-month clandestine operation.

By World Israel News Staff

US Navy SEALs carried out a clandestine four-month operation to locate and destroy Iranian mines in the Strait of Hormuz, using divers, robotic vessels and specialized underwater systems to reopen one of the world’s most important shipping routes, according to a new report.

The operation was conducted largely at night while US and Iranian forces continued exchanging attacks in and around the strategic waterway, the Financial Times reported Sunday, citing people familiar with the mission.

No American personnel were reported killed during the mine-clearing effort.

Small teams operated from inflatable boats while unmanned surface vessels and submersible systems equipped with sonar searched the seabed for suspected mines.

Once a potential explosive was identified, divers could be required to approach it and place charges for detonation.

“That is usually followed up by a navy diver who’s got to get in the water and approach the mine,” retired US Navy Capt. Bill Hamblet told the Financial Times.

The mission placed personnel in an unusually dangerous environment.

Mine clearance is inherently slow and hazardous, while the threat of Iranian missiles, drones and boats added another layer of risk to forces operating in the narrow waterway.

“It is an extremely time-consuming process,” Chatham House associate fellow Nitya Labh said, describing the work as “active bomb detonation underwater.”

Iran began laying mines in the Strait after the US-Israel war against the Islamic Republic began on February 28. The mines became a major obstacle to restoring commercial traffic through Hormuz, which before the war carried roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supplies.

By June, maritime officials were warning that dozens of mines remained in the waterway. The main international traffic separation scheme was considered unsafe, while vessels were advised to use a southern route along Omani territorial waters that had been cleared of mines.

The US military had publicly acknowledged the beginning of a mine-clearance effort months earlier, but the scale and methods of the covert operation were not previously known.

On April 11, US Central Command announced that the guided-missile destroyers USS Frank E. Petersen and USS Michael Murphy had entered the Persian Gulf as part of an effort to establish a safe passage through Hormuz.

CENTCOM said underwater drones and other forces would subsequently join the operation.

“Today, we began the process of establishing a new passage,” CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper said at the time.

The newly reported mission relied heavily on special operations personnel and unmanned technology rather than the Navy’s traditional mine-countermeasure vessels.

According to the Financial Times, three US ships normally tasked with mine warfare in the Gulf had been operating elsewhere since at least early June.

By late August, CENTCOM declared that the internationally recognized shipping lanes through the strait had been cleared.

“We have successfully cleared sea mines in the Strait’s international shipping lanes,” Cooper said, crediting Navy divers, Navy SEALs and air power from across the US armed forces.

“The circumstances were challenging and dangerous, to say the least, but we got the job done,” he added.

President Donald Trump also declared in late August that “all mines have been removed and/or detonated” from international waters in the strait, while warning Iran against attempting to lay new ones.

US officials subsequently told Axios that American forces had removed more than 200 mine-like objects from the main shipping lane. Only 11 were determined to be actual mines, and just a few had been properly deployed, according to the officials.

The clearance operation helped restore significant commercial traffic. Cooper said nearly 1,500 vessels carrying approximately 750 million barrels of crude oil had passed through the strait under US protection during recent months.

Traffic still remains below prewar levels, and shipping companies continue to face the threat of Iranian attacks.

The International Maritime Organization reported 72 confirmed maritime incidents in and around the region as of September 2, with 21 seafarers killed since the conflict began.

Concerns also remain that Iran could quickly place new mines in sections of the strait that US forces have already cleared.

“It doesn’t take much to put a mine back in,” one tanker industry executive told the Financial Times, pointing to the heavy small-boat traffic that crosses Hormuz at night.

The continuing threat was underscored in recent days as US and Iranian forces again exchanged attacks around the waterway. Oil prices rose Monday after American forces struck Iranian tankers and Tehran launched fresh attacks on US vessels and commercial shipping.

Hamblet said Tehran’s ability to create uncertainty over the security of Hormuz remains one of its most valuable strategic tools, even if US forces have cleared the principal commercial lanes.