On October 29, a small boat came alongside the Panama flagged tanker Louise 1, about 46 kilometres northeast of Khasab in Oman, and attached two limpet mines. They exploded, set the engine room on fire and disabled the ship for a time; the crew survived and the voyage resumed [1]. Reuters reported that it was the first successful use of such explosives in the strait since the war began in February, and that who carried it out was not immediately clear [1].

The next day, the Revolutionary Guard navy said it had stopped two tankers that switched off their tracking systems and tried to use an "unauthorized route" with American help [1]. That claim has not been independently verified.

Two months earlier, on August 28, the commander of US Central Command, Admiral Brad Cooper, had declared: "Bottom line, today, international shipping lanes are open" [2]. He said American forces had cleared the Iranian mines from them [2].

So in the same narrow water there are now two maps. One is drawn by Washington and shows lanes it has declared clear. The other is drawn by Tehran and shows routes it calls authorised and unauthorised. A ship that follows the first can be stopped under the second. Fikr asks a question that the mine stories have not: who has the right to draw the map of a Muslim sea?

Three claimants to one strait

The United States claims the lanes by clearing them. Central Command says that more than 3,000 commercial vessels have crossed the strait with its support over six months [3]. Yet when Cooper declared the lanes open, American allies privately told Bloomberg that the strait was "still likely mined," and that the United States had not cleared all of the 80 to 150 mines Iran was believed to have laid; US officials called that estimate outdated [2].

Iran claims the strait by controlling passage. It says it decides which routes are permitted [1][2].

And Oman, whose shore forms the southern side of the strait, has been drawn in. On August 26, the Revolutionary Guard said Iran and Oman had reached agreements on their share of the strait and its revenues; Oman did not confirm it, and no terms were published [4]. The tanker hit on October 29 was struck off Omani territory [1].

Three claimants, three maps, and one narrow channel at the mouth of the Gulf.

The other sea, where the shore states hold the map

The Black Sea offers the comparison that the coverage of Hormuz has missed.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, Türkiye invoked the Montreux Convention of 1936 and closed its straits to the warships of the warring parties [5]. In January 2024, it went further: it refused to let two British minehunters, given to Ukraine, pass the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles while the war continued [5]. Its presidency said Türkiye had applied Montreux impartially "to prevent escalation in the Black Sea" [5].

Days later, Türkiye, Romania and Bulgaria formed their own Black Sea Mine Countermeasures Task Group, each assigning three minehunters and a command ship [6]. The Turkish defence minister, Yasar Guler, described the policy as one of "regional ownership" [6]. The United States Sixth Fleet has said that some 150 floating mines were detected in the Black Sea after the invasion [7]. In July 2026, the three states expanded the group to protect undersea infrastructure as well [8].

In the Black Sea, the states on the shore sweep their own water, and the outside navies stay outside. In Hormuz, an outside navy sweeps the water, declares it open, and the states on the shore are left to argue over who controls it.

What the mines teach

A mine is cheap and its effects are long. In 1991, Iraq laid about 1,290 mines in the northern Gulf, and two American warships, USS Tripoli and USS Princeton, were struck on a single day, February 18 [9]. The mines were cleared by foreign navies, among them the US Navy and the Royal Navy [9].

The lesson of October 29 is sharper still. No sweep of the seabed can stop a small boat from attaching a charge to a hull. The Greek risk firm Marisks called the method simple and cheap, and said it "presents a significant security concern" [1]. Clearing the lanes did not make them safe. It made them American.

Who gains, and who carries the risk

The power that declares a lane clear decides which ships may use it, and earns the claim to police it afterwards. The power that calls a route unauthorised decides which ships may be stopped. In both cases, the decision is made by those who do not live on the southern shore.

The ships that are hit, the insurers who price the risk and the coastal states whose waters become the scene of attacks carry the cost. The Louise 1 was struck off Oman, not off Iran or America [1].

There is a Muslim power that knows how to do it differently. Türkiye leads a regional mine force in the Black Sea under the principle of regional ownership [6]. It is also, with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, a member of the Mecca defence pact, whose security chiefs sat down with Iran in Tehran on October 26 [10]. If the states of the Gulf and their partners want a strait that is not mapped by outsiders, the Black Sea shows that shore states can sweep their own water, and keep the warships of others out.

Fikr tests the hypothesis in levels

The hypothesis: in Hormuz, mine clearance has become a claim of control, and the states that pay for insecurity are not the ones drawing the map.

Competing claims: documented. Washington declares the lanes open, Tehran declares routes unauthorised, and Iran claims a revenue arrangement with Oman [2][1][4].

Limits of clearance: documented. A tanker was disabled by attached charges two months after the lanes were declared clear [1][2].

An alternative model: documented. In the Black Sea, the shore states have run their own mine force since 2024 and kept outside warships out under Montreux [5][6][8].

The signs to watch: whether anyone claims the Louise 1 attack; whether Oman confirms or denies an arrangement with Iran; whether insurers treat the American lanes as safe; and whether any regional power, Türkiye included, offers a Gulf mine force of its own.

The verdict

Fikr Institute judges that in Hormuz the question is no longer only whether the mines are gone. It is who decides that they are. A lane declared clear by an outside navy, a route declared unauthorised by a coastal power, and a revenue deal that one partner has not confirmed are three claims to the same water.

The Black Sea shows another way: the states on the shore sweep their own sea and keep the warships of others out. Until the Gulf finds its own version, the strait will be mapped by those who can sweep it or mine it, and paid for by those who only live beside it.