3 oil tankers caught fire after hitting mines in Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard says
Three tankers exploded and caught fire after hitting sea mines while attempting to cross an unauthorized route south of the Strait of Hormuz over the past 24 hours, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard says in a statement shared by state media.
The tankers had switched off their radar and navigation systems and ignored warnings from the Guard’s navy, which says the vessels had been abandoned on the southern shores of the strait.
It is unclear whether there were injuries, or who had laid the ordnance.
The Times of Israel reports, in a short liveblog entry, the Revolutionary Guard's statement that three tankers hit mines and caught fire in the Strait of Hormuz, and it attributes the main claim clearly in both headline and body. One sentence gives the Guard's account of the tankers' conduct without attribution, so a reader may take it as established. The entry is otherwise careful and says plainly that it does not know who laid the mines.
States one side's claim as fact
Minor
“The tankers had switched off their radar and navigation systems and ignored warnings from the Guard’s navy”
Why this matters
The Times of Israel writes that the tankers had switched off their radar and navigation systems and ignored warnings in its own voice. The attribution 'which says' in the same sentence covers only the later claim that the vessels were abandoned.
The impression it gives
A reader may take it as established that the tankers went dark and defied the Guard's navy.
The context
This account of the tankers' conduct comes from the Revolutionary Guard's statement, which the previous sentence attributes. Other coverage reports only the Guard's own words, calling the ships 'violating oil tankers', and no independent source confirms what the ships did.
How we know
Elsewhere in the article“Iran’s Revolutionary Guard says in a statement shared by state media”