US Navy blasts Hellfire missiles into civilian ship engines in the Gulf

U.S. forces disabled a Botswana-flagged oil tanker (M/T Lexie) that was trying to run the American blockade and head toward Iran’s Kharg Island oil terminal. After the ship ignored repeated warnings for nearly 24 hours, a U.S. aircraft fired an AGM-114 Hellfire missile directly into the ship’s engine room, disabling it.

The tanker was unladen (empty) at the time. This is the sixth vessel the U.S. has disabled since the blockade began in mid-April.