Iran's IRGC says three vessels caught fire in Hormuz Strait's ‘illegal’ route

Tehran: Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Thursday that three vessels, including two supertankers, caught fire in two separate incidents the previous night while crossing the Strait of Hormuz through an "illegal and unauthorised" route south of the waterway.

In a statement on its official media outlet Sepah News, the IRGC said that in one of the incidents, an oil tanker caught fire after hitting naval mines as it was passing through the "illegal" route.

In the other incident, another oil tanker, which was leaving the strait through the same route, was stopped after catching fire east of the waterway. A tugboat that had approached the oil tanker to help contain the blaze also caught fire, the statement said.

In a separate operation, members of its naval electronic warfare unit took control of two "invading" low-cost uncrewed combat attack system drones and landed them unharmed, the IRGC said.

It accused the US government of imposing "very heavy" insurance costs on American taxpayers and its allies in West Asia by enticing vessels into committing violations and passing through the mined route in the strait, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Meanwhile, US Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said on Wednesday that "we are going to end the war" with Iran, and that there will be support from some Senate Republicans.

"We are going to end the war. We have some Republicans already who have joined us in ending the war, and the Founding Fathers had the power of the purse as one of the ways of deterring a president who does war without the consent of the American people," Schumer said at a press conference at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee headquarters in Washington, DC.

Schumer's remarks came a few hours after Election Day, when Democrats are projected to flip control of the House of Representatives and Senate in the midterm elections.

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