Tehran is seeking to choke the vital Strait of Hormuz to oil traffic following US and Israeli strikes against Iran, with fears it could be using sea mines to do so. Any Iranian mining of the key shipping lane, as its forces did in the 1980s, would be a nightmare for Western demining teams. Here’s an explainer:
WHAT ARE SEA MINES?
“Mines are the weapon of the poor,” a former senior officer with the French navy and specialist on the subject told AFP on condition of anonymity. Yet “they pose a fundamental threat to maritime trade and to the freedom of action of naval forces,” he said.
HOW MANY DOES IRAN HAVE?
Elie Tenenbaum, a researcher at the French Institute for International Relations (IFRI), said Iran was estimated to have some 5,000–6,000 naval mines, including “drifting mines that are extremely difficult to intercept”.
Contact mines can drift around on the surface with the current or can be moored to an anchor on the sea floor. They explode when they come into contact with a ship’s hull.
The Iranians also had influence mines adapted to the Gulf’s shallow waters, which are sown on the seabed and explode when a large ship is detected overhead, he said. The Iranians could also use speedboats to attach limpet mines to the hulls of ships, which would be set to explode at a certain time, he added.
The Iranians can rapidly deploy all these mines “in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz using high-speed small boats equipped as minelayers”, the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) said in a 2019 report.
HAVE THEY BEEN USED BEFORE?
Tehran used deployed sea mines during its conflict with Iraq in the 1980s during the so-called “tanker war”, forcing the United States to escort commercial ships.
During the Gulf war in 1991, Iraqi forces deployed 1,300 mines, badly damaging two US navy ships, including the USS Princeton, which it cost about $100 million to bring back on line, according to US researcher Scott Truver, who has taught at the Naval War College.
WHAT OF DEMINING?
Western nations have the means to demine the Strait of Hormuz should it be necessary, but such an operation would be long and complicated.
“Strategically placed sea mines could become the Achilles heel of US naval operations,” the Center for Maritime Strategy said last year, warning Iran but also China and Russia had acquired the cheap munition.
