Tankers

Iranian forces say five oil tankers and a tugboat have caught fire in several incidents in the Strait of Hormuz.

At least five tankers have been damaged in the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian forces said, making clear that shipping would remain in peril as long as the United States and Israel’s war on the country is unresolved.

Since the war on Iran began in late February, Tehran has severely restricted traffic through the strategic waterway, which normally carries about one-fifth of global oil consumption.

“Last night … a large oil tanker attempting to pass through the illegal passageway south of the Strait of Hormuz suffered a fire after striking a mine and was brought to a halt,” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) told the Fars news agency on Thursday.

“Another supertanker was halted by a massive fire while exiting the eastern Strait of Hormuz. A tugboat that had approached the supertanker to extinguish the fire also caught fire,” the IRGC added.

The Iranian army later said three more tankers were hit by naval mines and caught fire.

“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,” the army said, according to the official IRNA news agency.

“Today at around noon, two more oil tankers struck naval mines and caught fire in the unsafe waters east of the Strait of Hormuz,” said another army statement carried by IRNA.

Separately, the British military said a tanker was struck by two projectiles off Qatar’s coast.

The vessel was hit about 50 nautical miles (about 93 kilometres) north of Qatar’s ⁠Madinat ash-Shamal on Wednesday at 23:20 GMT, the ⁠United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency said on Thursday.

UKMTO did not identify the tanker or which country’s flag it was sailing under. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

In an incident last week, a Qatari tanker was hit by “unidentified objects” while sailing in the Gulf.

The liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Al Mayeda was hit on October 30, the Qatar Gas Transport Company (Nakilat) said on Sunday.

No crew members were injured, and there ‌was no environmental impact, the company said, adding that the vessel remained ‌safe and ‌operational while the impact was being assessed.

Attacks on tankers in the Gulf are still running close to a record pace.

UKMTO said in a report last month that it was “struggling to accurately report” the true number of attacks as the majority of ships now refuse to report them.

Qatar has stepped up mediation efforts to resume talks on ending the war in recent days.

Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ spokesperson said on Tuesday that ⁠both sides were reviewing proposals ⁠put forward by mediators, with talks continuing.

But unnamed Pentagon officials and military commanders told The New York Times on Wednesday that thousands of US air and naval forces on more than a dozen ships and at bases around the Middle East and in the US are poised to resume major combat operations against Iran on President Donald Trump’s orders.

Iranian government and military leaders, however, have warned of repercussions if the US or Israel pursue further military action.

On Wednesday, Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said there should not be “even the slightest inclination towards submission” to the US, which he said would remain hostile towards Iran no matter which party was in power.

IRGC Ground Force commander Brigadier General Mohammad Karami said on Wednesday that the continuation of “hostile and brutal actions by Iran’s enemies” would lead to “further Iranian victories and greater national pride”, while accelerating the expulsion of foreign powers from the region and the collapse of Israel.

US president warns Iran to make a deal, as IRGC says two tankers have hit mines and caught fire in the Strait of Hormuz.

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Just over two years after the U.S. Air Force retired the last of its KC-10A Extender aerial refueling tankers, four of those aircraft may be bound for a new career in North Africa for a mysterious end user.

The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) put out a contracting notice yesterday “solely for information and planning purposes” with the express intent “to identify potential industry sources that possess the capability, expertise, and facilities to execute the regeneration, one-time flight clearance, depot-level return to service, worldwide ferry delivery, in-country Contractor Logistics Support (CLS), and operational/maintenance training for up to four (4) KC-10 Extender aircraft.”

The KC-10s could be “transferred via Excess Defense Articles (EDA) to a partner nation in North Africa,” the notice adds, without naming the country in question.

The Air Force operated KC-10s between 1981 and 2024. TWZ has reached out to the U.S. Air Force, as well as the U.S. State Department, for more information. The State Department directed us to contact the Pentagon.

The EDA program allows for materiel deemed extraneous to U.S. military needs to be transferred to allies and partners either at a reduced cost or as a grant. The foreign nation in question has to pay for those assets to be delivered, as well as refurbishment, if applicable.

It is important to note here that the Extender, as designed, is capable of refueling receivers using either the boom or the probe-and-drogue method. Tankers equipped for the probe-and-drogue method are, by far, more common internationally. We will come back to this later on.

While we don’t know what the North African country might be in line now to receive the quartet of KC-10s, Egypt and Morocco would seem to be the most likely candidates based on their current and planned aircraft inventories. They are also both major U.S. allies.

The Egyptian Air Force currently does not operate any dedicated aerial refueling tankers. The country is in the process of acquiring two new C-130J-30 Hercules aircraft for use as airlifters, as well as tankers, using the probe-and-drogue method. It does already fly C-130s, but none explicitly configured for aerial refueling duties. Egypt also has a very diverse array of fighters that includes U.S.-made F-16 Vipers that can only be refueled in mid-air via boom.

Morocco’s Air Force also flies F-16s and is in the process of acquiring more. The first new-production Block 72 F-16D for the Moroccan Air Force just flew for the first time earlier this week. Morocco does have an organic aerial refueling capability now, but in the form of C-130s equipped to dispense fuel via probe-and-drogue.

As mentioned, the KC-10 was designed to connect with receivers via probe-and-drogue, as well as boom, and could be used to refuel other tactical jets in Egyptian or Moroccan service. As an aside, fighters belonging to both regularly receive foreign tanker support during exercises, as already seen earlier in this story. Just last month, Chinese YY-20 tankers (also sometimes referred to as Y-20Us) notably did just this in an exercise in Egypt.

Whichever country may be in line to receive the four KC-10s, there is a question about the current state of those aircraft. Earlier in this story, we talked about the Extender’s capabilities as designed.

McDonnell Douglas (since absorbed into Boeing) delivered a total of 60 KC-10s to the U.S. Air Force between 1979 and 1987. The Extender was derived from the three-engine DC-10 airliner, the last of which was produced in 1989. The Air Force lost one of its KC-10s in an accident in 1987.

Of the remaining 59 KC-10s, 10 were put up for auction in a non-flyable state last year. For reasons that remain unclear, a single engine had been removed from under one of the wings of each of those aircraft. These Extenders were also among the first to be retired, and their booms had been stripped to be used as spares for the examples that remained in service until 2024. Private aerial refueling contractor Omega Air looks to have subsequently won those auctions. Omega also operates two ex-Dutch KDC-10 tankers, which are broadly similar to the KC-10, as well as another DC-10 converted into a probe-and-drogue-only tanker. The company has several Boeing 707-based tankers, as well.

The condition of the remaining 49 Extenders is unclear. Congress included a provision in the annual defense policy bill, or National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), for the 2026 Fiscal Year that required the Air Force to preserve remaining retired KC-10s, but only stipulated they be maintained “in the same storage condition” they were in as of September 30, 2025. The bill, which was signed into law in December 2025, also made clear that the Air Force could still “dispose” of the aircraft in accordance with existing property management statutes.

Regenerating military aircraft, especially larger ones, back to service can be costly, complex, and time-consuming, even when they are kept in storage in a highly maintained state. In this particular case, acquiring KC-10s via the EDA program, with a very low up-front purchase price, could still be attractive to the right buyer, especially compared to the cost of acquiring new-production tankers.

For a country like Egypt or Morocco that has never operated a boom-equipped tanker, second-hand Extenders could be a valuable entry point to future aerial refueling capabilities, as well. In general, organic aerial refueling capability is an important force multiplier for any air arm.

There is a possibility that KC-10s could be regenerated not as tankers, but as cargo aircraft, though this seems less likely to be the case. Cargo carrying was also an important duty for the Extenders while in U.S. Air Force service, and they still could operate in this role even when returned to service as tankers.

Though the aging KC-10s were getting increasingly more difficult to operate and maintain, the Air Force’s decision to retire them was still controversial. The Extender was a highly flexible tanker that could carry more fuel than the KC-46s that supplanted them. Clearly, there are others still interested in operating them.

It should be stressed that the AFLCMC contracting notice does not present the transfer of the four KC-10s as a done deal. At the same time, it has revealed that one of America’s partners in North Africa could breathe new life into four of these retired tankers.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com