Iran's Revolutionary Guards said two supertankers were struck and disabled in the Strait of Hormuz after entering a mined corridor, Mehr news agency reported on July 14.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the powerful military force that answers directly to Iran's supreme leader and controls naval operations in the Gulf, said in a statement issued by its public relations office that the US military had "provoked" a group of vessels into attempting passage along what it called an illegal route hours earlier.

The two tankers, which the IRGC described as "violating" vessels deceived by Washington, allegedly switched off their navigation systems, ignored repeated warnings from a body the statement called the Hormuz Strait Security Control Centre, and chose to transit a mined corridor before being hit and put out of action.

The IRGC Navy warned that cooperation with the US and passage through mined routes would bring "nothing but regret, damage, delay in the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the creation of a global energy crisis" wording that indicates Tehran regards the waterway as closed and mined, in direct contradiction of US President Donald Trump's declaration on July 13 that the strait "is OPEN, and will remain OPEN, with or without Iran".

The statement, couched in religious language and opening with a Quranic verse, described the US military as a "child-killing army" that had failed to learn from what it called repeated defeats, and cast the IRGC Navy as defending the Iranian nation's rights in the strait against an aggressor that had come "from thousands of kilometres away".

The claimed strikes came hours after Trump announced the reinstatement of a blockade on Iranian shipping in the strait and a 20% levy on all other transiting cargo, declaring the US the "Guardian of the Hormuz Strait". The exchange marks one of the sharpest escalations in the waterway since the US-Iran war began in late February.

The statement did not identify the tankers, their flags, owners or cargoes, and gave no information on casualties among the crews or any resulting oil spill. There was no immediate comment from the US Central Command or from shipping authorities, and the IRGC's account could not be independently verified.

The strait, which connects the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman between Iran and Oman, carries roughly a fifth of global oil consumption and around a third of seaborne liquefied natural gas trade.

Any confirmed mining of the channel and strikes on laden supertankers would sharply raise war-risk premiums and threaten the physical flow of Gulf crude and LNG to markets, principally in Asia.