Under the cover of darkness and jamming screens, US Navy SEALs have carried out a high‑risk raid to dismantle what Pentagon officials describe as an Iranian “kill box” of naval mines laid across key shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz.

Launched from a submerged US submarine and high‑speed rigid inflatables, the SEAL teams slipped into the narrow chokepoint after drones and electronic‑warfare aircraft blinded Iranian coastal radars. Divers then moved along a lattice of tethered influence mines and disguised seabed charges positioned to cripple oil tankers and US warships.

According to defence sources, the commandos used shaped charges and specialized neutralisation tools to either disarm or blow clear at least two minefields, while unmanned underwater vehicles mapped a wider network believed to be linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Navy. Real‑time feeds from the robots guided SEALs through murky currents just a few hundred metres from Iranian patrol routes.

Tehran’s state media has dismissed talk of a mine “trap” as “US psychological warfare,” insisting Iran is merely defending its territorial waters. But shipping insurers report a sharp drop in tanker traffic through the strait in recent days, amid fears that even a single undetected mine could trigger a multi‑billion‑dollar catastrophe and drag global energy markets into chaos.

Inside Washington’s war room, Operation Hormuz is being hailed as a textbook example of covert power projection — a message that the US can still silently reach into the world’s most contested waters and flip off the switch on Iran’s most dangerous toys before they ever detonate.