Iran's regular navy — the Army Navy, a separate service from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — reported on Thursday afternoon that two more oil tankers had hit naval mines and caught fire in the area east of the Strait of Hormuz that Tehran calls unsafe, state broadcaster IRIB reported. “This afternoon, two more offending oil tankers hit naval mines and caught fire in the unsafe area east of the Strait of Hormuz,” the Navy's public relations department said, blaming the fires on the vessels ignoring maritime warnings and entering prohibited areas without coordination. The claim names no vessels and has not been independently verified.

Source: IRIB via ANI, Nov 5

The afternoon report followed a first Navy report on Thursday morning: an oil tanker travelling through what the Navy called an “unsafe area” east of the strait caught fire and stopped after hitting a naval mine, IRIB said. The Navy claimed that tanker — like other tankers it says have hit mines and caught fire in recent days — had switched off its detection and navigation systems, and said the incident showed the risks of navigating the area without coordination.

Source: IRIB via ANI, Nov 5; Press TV, Nov 5

Thursday's Navy reports are separate from the IRGC announcement Awaaz Punjab reported this morning — the Guards said two tankers and a tugboat caught fire on ‘unauthorised’ routes. Whether the navy's unnamed vessels overlap with the Guards' has not been established. Read: IRGC says two tankers and a tugboat caught fire in Hormuz

Press TV, reporting the Army Navy statement, put the second pair's mine strikes at around midday and quoted the Navy's renewed warning in full: “We warn tanker owners and other vessel operators once again that the Strait of Hormuz is closed and remains unsafe for vessels attempting to pass through without prior coordination and authorization from Iranian authorities.” The IRIB version carried a near-identical line addressed to ship owners: the strait is “unsafe and closed to illegal vessels that intend to transit without coordination.”

Source: Press TV, Nov 5; IRIB via ANI, Nov 5

The reports extend a week in which the strait has produced a near-daily sequence of Iranian claims and at least one independently logged incident. On Wednesday the IRGC said four oil tankers were destroyed after striking naval mines on a prohibited route south of the strait and that two other vessels were seized. Separately, the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre (UKMTO) said a tanker was struck by two unidentified projectiles about 50 nautical miles north of Madinat ash Shamal, Qatar, late on Wednesday — an incident logged by an international maritime security body, though the crew's status and the damage were unconfirmed.

Source: IRGC via Reuters, Nov 4–5; UKMTO via AP, Nov 5

The UKMTO projectile incident off Qatar was reported by Awaaz Punjab earlier on Thursday. Read: Tanker struck by two projectiles north of Madinat ash Shamal, Qatar

Press TV's report of the Navy statement also carried a further IRGC announcement — that three intruding vessels had exploded in the strait and that two US-made LUCAS drones had been seized. That claim, too, comes only from Iranian state media and had no independent confirmation by Thursday afternoon in Toronto; the United States had not commented on it in the reports reviewed.

Source: Press TV, Nov 5

No casualties, vessel names, flags, owners or damage assessments have been published for any of Thursday's Navy-reported incidents, and no shipping authority, insurer or operator had confirmed them by publication time. That matters for how to read the sequence: Iran's two naval services are reporting fires faster than anyone can verify them, at the same time as Tehran negotiates — through Oman and Qatar — over the very question of who may pass through the strait and on what terms.

Source: IRIB via ANI, Nov 5; Press TV, Nov 5

What happens next

Watch for any confirmation from UKMTO, flag states, insurers or the vessels' operators — the first independent check on a week of Iranian claims — and for whether the incident pace changes the Oman and Qatar talks reported on Thursday, in which Muscat and Tehran discussed resuming navigation “without obstacles.” Oil traders are already pricing the risk: Brent rose about 3 percent on Thursday to around $97.56 a barrel after Wednesday's 8 percent plunge, Reuters reported.