US Military Destroys Two Iranian Boats After IRGC Attempts to Seize Navy Drone in Strait of Hormuz

The U.S. military destroyed two Iranian small boats on Monday after Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces attempted to capture a Navy drone patrolling the Strait of Hormuz, according to U.S. officials cited by Axios. The incident marks a direct kinetic confrontation over an unmanned American surveillance asset in one of the world's most strategically critical waterways.

The episode is the latest in a sharply escalating series of military exchanges in and around the Strait of Hormuz. Iran had, in preceding weeks, launched ballistic missiles at U.S. Navy warships, prompting American retaliatory strikes on Iranian oil tankers under what officials described as a "tanker for tanker" policy approved by the Trump administration. Iran had also previously claimed to have seized a separate U.S. unmanned submersible, a claim the Pentagon dismissed by calling the vessel defective and malfunctioning.

As of September 14, Iran said it had downed an advanced American drone over the strait, while a scheduled meeting in Oman between Gulf countries and Iran to discuss possible agreements over Hormuz passage had been postponed, underscoring the absence of any diplomatic off-ramp to the conflict.