US military seizes another Iran-linked oil tanker in Indian Ocean

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The US military seizes another tanker associated with the smuggling of Iranian oil, ratcheting up a standoff with Iran a day after its paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps took control of two vessels in the crucial Strait of Hormuz.

The US Defense Department releases video footage of US forces on the deck of the oil tanker Majestic X, which was seized in the Indian Ocean.

“We will continue global maritime enforcement to disrupt illicit networks and interdict vessels providing material support to Iran, wherever they operate,” a Pentagon statement says.

Ship-tracking data showed the Majestic X in the Indian Ocean between Sri Lanka and Indonesia, roughly the same location as the oil tanker Tifani, earlier seized by American forces. It had been bound for Zhoushan, China.

There is no immediate response from Iran on the news of the seizure.

The seizure comes a day after Iran attacked three cargo ships in the strait, capturing two of them, in a move that intensified its assault on shipping in the key waterway through which 20% of the world’s traded oil passes in peacetime.

The Majestic X is a Guyana-flagged oil tanker. It previously had been named Phonix and had been sanctioned by the US Treasury Department in 2024 for smuggling Iranian crude oil in contravention of US sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

Overnight, U.S. forces carried out a maritime interdiction and right-of-visit boarding of the sanctioned stateless vessel M/T Majestic X transporting oil from Iran, in the Indian Ocean within the INDOPACOM area of responsibility.

We will continue global maritime enforcement to… pic.twitter.com/SWF6Jt9Ci4

— Department of War ???????? (@DeptofWar) April 23, 2026