Every tanker reported hit in Hormuz this week was counted by the force accused of hitting them

Reuters reported from Dubai on 5 November that Iran said three more tankers had been damaged in the Strait of Hormuz that day, under a standing subhead noting that attacks on tankers in the Gulf are still running close to a record pace. The Revolutionary Guards said two tankers struck naval mines and another caught fire; the Guards generally do not acknowledge firing on merchant vessels, and maintain that passage through the strait is unsafe without Tehran’s permission. Al Jazeera, the same day, put the cumulative total at five oil tankers and a tugboat, carrying Iranian army statements via IRNA: “Early this morning, a violating oil tanker — navigating through an unsafe area east of the Strait of Hormuz — caught fire and came to a halt after striking a naval mine,” and later, “two more oil tankers struck naval mines and caught fire.” The only independent corroboration in the record is UKMTO, which reports incidents involving five or more vessels in the Gulf since 1 November — a period count, not a daily one. No flag state, owner or vessel name has emerged for Thursday’s three.

The tempo figure behind the Reuters subhead is that Iran attacked at least 35 vessels in the region in October, a record for the nine-month war. The throughput figures are where the picture fractures. IMF PortWatch data, as of 6 November, has the strait effectively closed to commercial traffic with two transits recorded. Windward counted five vessels crossing on 4 November — two inbound, three outbound, one general cargo ship running dark, and no outbound tanker. S&P Global’s Commodities at Sea data, reported by Hellenic Shipping News, has Hormuz crossings at a three-month high in October despite the attacks. Single-digit daily counts and a three-month monthly high are not necessarily contradictory: convoying and clustering under the Iran–Oman supervision arrangement would produce exactly that shape. Further south, the US Maritime Administration’s advisory 2026-013 records the tankers AMZAN and DAISY struck by Houthi missiles off Yanbu on 24 August, and warns that entities claiming to be Yemeni authorities have attempted to divert commercial vessels.

Assessment: The measurement problem is not a footnote to Iranian leverage, it is the leverage. Tehran controls both the hazard and the ledger that prices it, and underwriters respond to the announcement as readily as to the event — which means a statement carried by IRNA moves war-risk premiums whether or not a hull was breached. Resist the instinct to reconcile PortWatch, Windward and Commodities at Sea; they count different things over different intervals, and a reporter who averages them is inventing a number. One figure in circulation, an Indian seafarer reported killed on 3 November, reaches us only through an aggregator citing The Maritime Executive, and should not be repeated until the original is seen.