Add The New York Post on Google The US Navy secretly carried out a dangerous, four-month mission to clear the Straight of Hormuz of Iranian mines using SEAL divers, drones and sonar technology, according to a new report.
The covert demining operations were carried out mostly at night, with the divers, armed with robot boats and special underwater crafts, taking the perilous journey to rid the critical oil pathway of explosives, The Financial Times reported.
The SEALS first located the bombs and cleared the area before undertaking the hardest challenge of the fraught and time-consuming mission.
“That is usually followed up by a navy diver who’s got to get in the water and approach the mine, and then put a charge on it and destroy it,” Bill Hamblet, a retired US Navy captain who often operated in the Gulf, told the FT.
The Navy also likely used robot drones to approach the mines and destroy them with explosives, which can be safer, but extremely time-consuming.
Among the tools at the troops’ disposal was the Navy’s Common Uncrewed Surface Vessel (CUSV), a drone boat that tows along advanced, unmanned submersibles like the MK 18 Mod 2 Kingfish, which is equipped with sonar that can scan the ocean floor.
Despite the dangers, no US casualties have been reported in connection to the minesweeping operation.
The United Nations’ International Maritime Organization estimated in June that roughly 80 mines had been deployed along the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway that oversees 20% of the world’s oil transports.
By August, President Trump declared that all mines had been removed from the Strait, with the US carrying out repeated attacks on Iran last week sparked by an alleged operation to refill the waterway with explosives.
The ease of re-mining the Strait of Hormuz, however, has stirred uncertainty among the ships undergoing the trips through the waterway.
Iran has repeatedly claimed that its mines are active in the Strait, with its military claiming two attacks on oil tankers last week.
While shipping companies and maritime analysts agree that the areas near the Omani coast, where the US has been escorting ships, are likely cleared, there is less consensus on the status of the rest of the waterway.
“It’s hard to know what to believe,” Ethan Connell, assistant director of Taiwan Security Monitor and an expert on mines, told the FT. “Iran is certainly trying to re-mine.”
The threat of the mines and repeated missile and drone attacks in the Strait has kept visible traffic along the waterway down to its lowest level since May, according to the Kpler maritime intelligence firm.
Only two ships crossed the Strait on Saturday, with six making the trip on Sunday, most of which were done through Iran’s approved route.
It remains difficult to calculate the total traffic as ships have been sneaking through by turning off their responders and sailing in the dark of night under US military escorts.
