Discrepant data on vessel movements and rival assertions about who holds authority over the waterway have left observers with an unclear picture of conditions in the Strait of Hormuz, a situation compounded by a continuing rise in incidents targeting commercial ships.
Vessel strike tallies in the Strait of Hormuz are likely undercounted relative to what official figures convey, a recently released UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) report found, pointing out that a considerable share of ships attacked in those waters do not submit incident reports to the organisation. Establishing a reliable count of incidents has been hampered, UKMTO noted in its Friday weekly overview, by the fact that a large proportion of targeted vessels are not submitting formal reports. The organisation noted that further incidents had come to its attention through outside channels, yet those events could not be included in formal reports until adequate verification was in place.
Two governments — one in Washington, the other in Tehran — are putting forward conflicting claims over who controls the waterway, while a mismatch between separate sets of shipping data leaves unanswered the extent to which cargo volumes along the passage have actually recovered.
How far publicly reported tallies of attacks can be trusted has come into sharper focus, with vessel strikes in commercial shipping lanes having intensified over the fortnight prior. Twelve incidents appeared in UKMTO's most recent tally, with ten of those concentrated in the Strait of Hormuz, one logged in the Arabian Gulf, and a further one noted in the Gulf of Oman. Of the eleven vessels tracked, a group of six pressed on or arrived safely at their destinations, two were rendered unable to navigate or lost steerage, and the remaining three carried damage reports or final statuses that had yet to be confirmed.
A projectile struck the GFS Pride — a Singapore-flagged containership — and the vessel did not survive the impact. Of the 74 projectile strikes catalogued in the document since 6 July, 55 — amounting to roughly three in every four — were recorded along the waterway's southern passage.
Those findings stand at odds with the account military officials have put forward about their control of the waterway. In a video address posted on Friday, Adm. Brad Cooper, heading U.S. Central Command, told reporters that allied forces maintain navigational authority over the Strait of Hormuz, adding that ongoing Iranian attacks had not altered that operational reality — a position he framed as one shared with partner nations in the region. Cooper noted that the doors had stayed open throughout.
According to the figures provided by Cooper, roughly 400 commercial vessels passed through the strait across that seven-day window, while Gulf partners received assistance moving upwards of 100 million barrels of crude oil over the same stretch. Those deliveries, Cooper noted, brought the running total of crude moved with American logistical backing to upward of 1.3 billion barrels over the preceding period.
Data from UKMTO's most recent release presents a contrasting picture. Over the seven-day stretch through 14 October, UKMTO logged a combined total of 254 vessel movements through the area, with 129 travelling inbound and 125 heading outbound. Compared with 275 crossings recorded the week before, movement through the area held at roughly 70% below the volumes seen before hostilities began.
Tracking data from the Automatic Identification System captured only 42 of those 254 vessel movements. Of the 212 vessels accounted for separately, each had been logged through U.S.-reported facilitated-transit records covering craft that travelled without active AIS transmissions. Those figures, along with the totals drawn from them, remain outside UKMTO's ability to confirm independently, the organisation noted in its advisory.
No timeframe was attached to Cooper's 400-transit figure, a gap that leaves room for the two tallies to stem from distinct reporting windows or different methods of counting.
Tehran has put forward a position on who holds authority over the strait that diverges from the version put out by the United States. On Thursday, Iranian Army Chief Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri Hatami conveyed that access through the strait would not be restored until the rights of Iran's population received due recognition.
An October 15 advisory from the Joint Maritime Information Center laid out two distinct passage options — one running through an Iranian-administered northern lane, the other through an Omani corridor to the south — and noted that vessels broadcasting their position via AIS stood at heightened risk of being targeted, with instructions to redirect them toward the Iranian route. According to UKMTO's newest findings, vessels transmitting AIS data have continued to favour the Iranian corridor at a rate outpacing other routes, while transits linked to United States facilitation account for the bulk of those formally logged.
Naval assets from the United States have been managing vessel movement through the strait, while Iran has shown a repeated capacity to target ships travelling along the southern route as well. UKMTO has noted that the majority of targeted ships are bypassing direct incident reporting, which means the tallied record of strikes — even as that count rises — may capture only a fraction of the hazards crew members actually face at sea.
