The United States broke a one-month lull in its war on Iran by striking military targets on Larak Island on Sunday, in what US officials claim was a bid to prevent Tehran from using rockets to deploy sea mines in the Strait of Hormuz. The strikes were aimed at Iranian rocket launchers positioned on Larak Island in the strait. The US called the strikes a “limited, precise action” against mine-laying forces.
Central Command (CENTCOM) spokesman Tim Hawkins said the US military, which is currently blockading Iranian ports in and around Hormuz, had observed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) preparing to launch rockets carrying sea mines. Iran’s leaders condemned the attack as an “act of aggression” and the IRGC has since launched retaliatory attacks on two US army bases in Jordan. In a statement, the IRGC said its members and civilians were killed in the US strikes.
The semi-official Tasnim news agency said at least two people were killed and two injured. But can mines really be laid using rockets? Harlan Ullman, a retired senior US naval officer, told Al Jazeera that the US’s claim of rocket-launched mines was “implausible”.
He suggested that the US may have received intelligence that Iran was prepared to use launchers from ships to deploy new mines but wanted to downplay the threat. So I would like to know from CENTCOM why they think Iran was using rockets, which to me is very, very novel.” But Iran has itself advertised its ability to use missiles to lay sea mines. In January 2025, Iranian state television appeared to show the IRGC using the Fajr-5 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) to lay mines during naval exercises.
It is a medium-range system primarily built to fire rockets with warheads and is mounted on trucks which can handle difficult terrain. Usually, mines are deployed using specialised surface warships, submarines or aircraft. They can be dropped to the seabed or moored slightly above the bottom, waiting to detect the magnetic signature or vibration of passing ships before detonating.
Mines can also be positioned to bob just beneath the water surface, exploding when they come in contact with vessels. Iran is believed to have relied on its hoard of fast, small attack boats to drop an unknown number of explosives into the Hormuz waters before quickly speeding away. Many of these vessels have been struck by the US military.
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