May 10, 2026:
Iran has been unable to open the Strait of Hormuz to additional shipping traffic because it cannot locate all of the mines it laid in the waterway and lacks the capability to remove them.
The development is one reason Iran has not been able to quickly comply with the American President’s admonitions to let more traffic pass through the strait. It is also potentially a complicating factor as Iranian negotiators and an American delegation led by the American Vice President met in Pakistan recently for peace talks.
Iran used small boats to mine the Hormuz Strait last month, soon after America and Israel began their war against Iran. The mines, plus the threat of Iranian drone and missile attacks, slowed the number of oil tankers and other vessels passing through the strait to a trickle, driving up energy prices and providing Iran with its best leverage in the war.
Iran left a path through the strait open, allowing ships that pay a toll to pass through. Iran’s IRGC/Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has issued warnings that ships could collide with sea mines, and a few news organizations have published charts showing safe routes.
Those routes are limited in large part because Iran mined the strait haphazardly, American officials claimed. It was not clear that Iran recorded where it put every mine. And even when the location was recorded, some mines were placed in a way that allowed them to drift or move.
As with land mines, removing naval mines is far more difficult than placing them. The American military lacks vigorous mine removal capabilities, relying on littoral combat ships equipped with mine sweeping capabilities. Iran also does not have the capability of quickly removing mines, even the ones it planted.
In a social media post on Tuesday discussing a pause in the American-Israeli war with Iran, the American President said a two-week cease-fire was contingent on complete, immediate and safe operations in the Strait of Hormuz.
Later, the Iranian foreign minister said that the strait would be open to traffic with due consideration of technical limitations. American officials noted that the Iranian Foreign Minister’s comments about technical limitations was a reference to Iran’s inability to quickly find or remove the mines.
The Iranian Foreign Minister was recently in Pakistan for meetings with the American officials. Given the American President’s demands to open the strait, the issue of how quickly safe passage through the waterway can be increased is likely to be a point of discussion.
The American military sought to destroy Iran’s navy, sinking ships and attacking naval bases. But Iran has hundreds of small boats that it can use to harass ships or lay mines. Destroying all of those small boats has proved impossible.
Even before Iran began laying mines, threats from its leaders quickly disrupted global shipping and sent oil prices up sharply. In early March, a senior official with the IRGC announced that the strait was closed and claimed Iran would set ships on fire if they entered the waterway.
In the days after that threat, Iran began mining the strait, even as the American’s increased strikes on Iranian naval resources. At the time, American officials said Iran was not planting mines quickly or efficiently.
Because it was difficult to track the small boats deploying the mines, the Americans are uncertain exactly how many Iran has placed in the strait or where they are located.