Two Ships Sink Near Hormuz as Iran Presses Record Assault on Commercial Shipping

DUBAI, Two cargo vessels went to the bottom of the sea near the Strait of Hormuz last week within a single day of each other, the starkest sign yet that Iran's campaign against commercial shipping through the waterway has crossed into a new and more destructive phase.

The Singapore-flagged container ship GFS Pride was struck by an unidentified projectile while transiting the strait on October 13, catching fire and sinking the following day. According to a statement from the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore reviewed by Reuters, all 21 crew members were safely evacuated and no injuries were reported. Pakistani maritime authorities issued a navigational warning to ships in the area, cautioning mariners about floating containers left in the vessel's wake.

Within hours, a second ship confirmed lost. The Antigua and Barbuda-flagged dry bulk carrier Cape Dao, first struck by a projectile on September 23, finally succumbed after an unsuccessful salvage attempt, according to British maritime risk management group Vanguard. One crew member was killed in the original attack; the rest had been evacuated at the time of the strike.

According to an analysis of data from the International Maritime Organization, the UN's shipping agency, the GFS Pride and Cape Dao are the second and third vessels to have sunk since the US-Israel air war on Iran began on February 28. The first was the Malta-flagged Safeen Prestige, which went down north of the strait in March.

The cause of the GFS Pride sinking remains disputed. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy claimed the vessel struck a naval mine while navigating what it called an unauthorised route, a version reported by Al Jazeera and Iran's Mehr news agency. Maritime security firm Marisks told CNBC there is no independent evidence to confirm the mine claim, and described Iran's account as consistent with "an ongoing psychological operations campaign aimed at generating fear, increasing uncertainty and discouraging commercial shipping."

The broader numbers are alarming. According to the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre, 15 attacks were recorded between October 6 and October 14 alone, with 11 of them in just the final four days of that stretch. Maritime tracking firm Kpler, cited by Al Jazeera, counted 10 tanker strikes in the strait in the single week ending October 4, the highest weekly total since the conflict began. In a statement to Reuters, an Iranian official acknowledged that Tehran had shifted its offensive tactics roughly ten days before that report, and attributed the surge in attacks to those changes.

The Singapore Maritime and Port Authority said it was "deeply concerned" about the continuing attacks and called them "unprovoked, unjustifiable, and a breach of international law," according to a statement reported by WorldCargo News.

The waterway's strategic weight is hard to overstate. Before the war, roughly 25 percent of the world's seaborne oil trade passed through the strait, according to Wikipedia's summary of the 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis, a figure that has made the passage a central theatre in the broader contest between Tehran and Washington.

Neither the US Central Command nor Iran offered an immediate public accounting of which party was responsible for last week's sinkings. US forces have separately disabled or struck ships they say violated the American naval blockade of Iran, which ran from April to late May. Both sides, as USNI News noted, have attacked ships as part of the conflict.

With more than 20 vessels struck this month alone in Hormuz, the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, according to CNBC, the pressure on international insurers, flag states, and shipping companies to reroute or suspend transits is becoming acute. Longer routes around the Cape of Good Hope add cost and time. The question insurers are now asking is not whether premiums rise further, but by how much.

Sources cited:
- Reuters / The Jerusalem Post (https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-911694)
- CNN (https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/15/middleeast/strait-of-hormuz-ships-sunk-iran-intl-hnk)
- CNBC (https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/14/container-ship-sinks-strait-hormuz-as-iran-war-attacks.html)
- Al Jazeera (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/14/iran-steps-up-hormuz-surveillance-attacks-soar-oil-flows-crash-again)
- WorldCargo News (https://www.worldcargonews.com/news/2026/10/breaking-news-container-ship-sinks-after-being-struck-near-strait-of-hormuz/)
- USNI News (https://news.usni.org/2026/10/09/october-sees-near-daily-strikes-on-ships-in-hormuz)
- US News & World Report / Reuters (https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-10-14/container-ship-sinks-near-hormuz-after-being-hit-by-projectile-sources-say)