Iran Claims Strike on Omani Island Navigation Systems in Strait of Hormuz

Iran says its Revolutionary Guards struck navigation and communications systems on Didamar Island, a small Omani island in the Strait of Hormuz, in the latest attack on the shipping infrastructure that guides oil tankers through the world’s most important energy chokepoint.

Iranian state media reported on Tuesday that the navy of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had carried out the strike. Three sources told Reuters on Wednesday that the island’s systems had been attacked, although none could say how much damage was done and Reuters could not independently verify whether any navigation systems were destroyed.

The claim has been disputed by Oman, and the evidence so far is inconclusive. The episode underlines how exposed the strait’s shipping lanes have become as the confrontation between Iran and the United States drags on.

What Iran claims happened

Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency quoted a Revolutionary Guards navy official as saying the navigational aid systems in the south of the strait had been destroyed. Iranian media said the Guards had targeted equipment on Didamar that Tehran alleges helped vessels pass through the strait without its authorisation.

Iran’s military said personnel on the island were “helping the flow of oil smuggling by the enemy”, according to reports of the claim. Tehran has not published photographs or other evidence showing the damage it says it inflicted.

The claim follows an earlier Iranian claim about tankers in the strait, when the Guards said four vessels had been disabled by mines near Hormuz — a claim that was also never independently verified.

Oman disputes the claim

A senior Omani official told The Maritime Executive that the navigational aids on Didamar had not been struck. Oman has confirmed that an explosion was detected on the island, but Muscat’s account differs sharply from Tehran’s version of events.

Satellite imagery has added to the confusion rather than settling it. Imagery from the European Union’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 programme dated 8 November appeared to show scorch marks near the island’s radar and radio equipment, and Reuters confirmed smoke rising from the island in video footage — although it was not clear what was burning.

Imagery from the morning of 10 November, however, showed no obvious damage to the lighthouse or the radar and radio masts, according to The Maritime Executive, which cautioned that damage to a mast could fall below the resolution of the available images. An independent satellite analyst, Arya Yadegaar, said scorch marks were visible in imagery from 8 November, raising the possibility that whatever happened took place earlier than Iran’s claim — or that the marks have an entirely separate origin.

What the evidence shows

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based research group, dated the attack to 8 November, two days before Iranian state media publicly attributed the operation to Tehran. The group said the Guards had overstated the effect of the strike, noting that commercial ships kept using the southern route afterwards.

“The extent of the damage to these systems and the systems struck remains unclear at the time of this writing,” the institute said in its assessment.

Didamar, also known as Little Quoin Island, is an uninhabited rocky island about 10 nautical miles north of the tip of Oman’s Musandam Peninsula. Its shore radar and radio equipment is used to track vessels and coordinate traffic through the southern shipping lane of the strait, the corridor most tankers use when leaving the Gulf.

Why the strait matters

The Strait of Hormuz is the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which a large share of the world’s seaborne oil must pass. The US Energy Information Administration reported that about 20.9 million barrels of oil passed through the strait each day during the first half of 2025.

Reuters reported 37 vessel attacks in the Gulf during October, and the Didamar incident has renewed concern about the security of the maritime infrastructure that keeps oil moving. US forces have been escorting commercial vessels along the strait’s southern route as the confrontation continues.

The episode also comes days after a G7 statement warning Iran over shipping in the strait, and as backchannel talks between Washington and Tehran have continued in parallel with the military pressure.

Wider tensions with Washington

Iran’s top security official, Mohsen Rezaei, warned this week that Tehran could strike American military bases beyond the Gulf, including in Europe, if the United States resumes air strikes. Iran’s parliament speaker and chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said in an interview published on Wednesday that the strait would “never return” to its pre-war status, as Tehran set out seven conditions for ending the conflict with the United States and Israel.

For now, the facts on Didamar remain contested: Iran claims a successful strike, Oman says its navigation aids were not hit, and the satellite record shows signs of fire without proving what was destroyed. Until independent inspectors can reach the island, the most that can be said with confidence is that something burned on Didamar — and that both sides are using the incident to press their case over the future of the strait.