London — The U.S. military’s Central Command repeated an assertion on Tuesday evening that has been made by the Trump administration many times over the last two weeks, insisting that “despite Iranian aggression, the Strait of Hormuz remains open for commercial vessel traffic.”
CENTCOM acknowledged in the same statement that Iran had launched more than 30 attacks on commercial vessels since the war began, which it said had “endangered hundreds of innocent mariners and undermined freedom of navigation.”
President Trump, who has himself declared the strait open many times recently, threatened on Wednesday to destroy an Iranian bridge or power plant for every new attack targeting a ship in the vital waterway.
Despite the U.S. president and military continuing to urge vessels to use a southern route through the strait, in defiance of Iran’s threats, few shippers seem willing to risk it.
The Joint Maritime Information Center in Bahrain, a military partnership that includes the U.S., said commercial traffic in the Strait of Hormuz fell to a three-week low on Tuesday amid ongoing Iranian attacks. CBS News tracked just three commercial ships — two cargo vessels and the Chinese-owned tanker Hsin Ocean — transiting the strait on Tuesday.
Between July 13 and 19, only two ships transited the strait using the U.S.-backed southern route that hugs the coast of Oman. Both transits were dark, meaning the vessels had turned off their AIS broadcast systems, according to a Lloyd’s List analysis.
AFP/Getty 
Last week, Dimitris Maniatis, CEO of the Greek maritime risk management company Marisks, said ship crews were unwilling to make the trip through the strait following the breakdown of the U.S.-Iran ceasefire that held for less than three weeks.
“There’s nothing physically obstructing the navigation of any vessel willing to transit the strait, and there are vessels that trade locally and are entirely unaffected by everything that’s going on, however, if we’re talking about large ocean-going, internationally owned-and-operated merchant vessels, nothing is going through,” Maniatis told CBS News on Wednesday.
U.S. support for ships that choose to risk Iranian attacks by taking the Oman route is limited to air support as they attempt the transit as part of a convoy, Maniatis said, “and this is definitely not enough, because we see that, despite the best efforts and intentions of the U.S. Navy, vessels continue to be hit while they’re crossing the southern corridor.”
“There is no guarantee of safe passage,” he said.
Greek shipping giant Dynacom was one of the last international operators willing to send crews through the strait, but two of its ships were struck off the coast of Oman earlier this week, forcing both crews to evacuate.
On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported South Korea’s Sinokor Group was offering mariners six months of extra pay to make a return voyage through the strait.
The Iranian threat, meanwhile, is spreading.
Iran’s Houthi rebel allies in Yemen said this week they would prevent Saudi Arabia from using its Red Sea ports to get energy products to Asian markets. That route relies on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait as the southern gateway to the Red Sea.
Getty/iStockphoto 
Much like the Strait of Hormuz, the Bab el-Mandeb is a narrow chokepoint for ships that can leave them vulnerable to attack, and the Houthis have a history — including in the last few years — of leveraging their proximity to the shipping lanes to threaten global commerce. Before the war, about 30% of global oil supplies would typically traverse the two straits every year.
At least five commercial vessels were seen turning around Tuesday as they approached the Bab el-Mandeb after the Houthis announced their intention to impose a blockade on Saudi Arabia .
Asked Tuesday about the Houthi threat, Mr. Trump said there was no blockade in the Red Sea, adding, “If something like that happens, we take care of that.”
But Maniatis said the U.S., so far, has not been able to take care of it in the Strait of Hormuz.
Majid Asgaripour/WANA/REUTERS 
“Owners and operators — and crews, predominately — are really not feeling the safety they would need in order to have their vessels transit, and now we’re seeing the same thing in the Bab el-Mandeb, which is absolutely horrendous,” Maniatis told CBS News.
“There’s so many people that are absolutely destroyed,” he said, referring to ship crews in the region. “We see a lot of crew members that have had long careers, but also junior members of the crew, where their psychology is absolutely destroyed. They don’t even want to be on ships anymore.”
At least 17 commercial mariners have been killed in 61 separate attacks in the Strait of Hormuz since the U.S. and Israel launched their joint war on Iran at the end of February, according to the U.N.’s International Maritime Organization.
