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Three U.S. Navy destroyers came under heavy attack Thursday while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, enduring a sustained and aggressive Iranian assault involving missiles, drones, and swarms of fast-attack boats.

The USS Truxtun, USS Mason, and USS Rafael Peralta faced what American officials described as a significantly more intense barrage than the one they encountered just days earlier. U.S. Central Command confirmed the incident and said American forces responded with self-defense strikes targeting Iranian drone and missile launch sites.

Intense Naval Battle

According to U.S. officials, Iranian fast-attack boats maneuvered dangerously close to the American warships, prompting the destroyers to open fire with five-inch naval guns, Close-In Weapon Systems (CIWS), and small-caliber deck guns. Apache helicopters fired Hellfire missiles while .50-caliber machine guns blazed from the ships’ decks. Overhead aircraft provided critical support during the hours-long confrontation.

Iran also launched multiple drones and missiles during the assault. Remarkably, no U.S. casualties or damage to the ships have been reported so far.

This marks the second such incident in just a few days. On Monday, the USS Truxtun and USS Mason had already navigated a similar Iranian barrage while entering the Persian Gulf.

The Real Story

These brazen attacks come barely a month after a fragile ceasefire was established between the United States and Iran. While both sides claim the ceasefire remains technically in place and peace negotiations continue, the repeated assaults in the Strait of Hormuz — a critical chokepoint carrying one-fifth of the world’s oil — reveal just how tense and unstable the situation has become.

Control over this vital waterway is clearly still being fiercely contested. Iran appears determined to challenge U.S. naval presence even as diplomatic efforts are supposedly underway. The fact that American warships have now faced two major assaults in less than a week raises serious questions about the durability of the ceasefire and whether Tehran is testing the limits of American resolve.

The U.S. military’s swift and layered response demonstrates that American forces will defend themselves forcefully when attacked. However, these incidents underscore how quickly the region could spiral back into open conflict if cooler heads do not prevail in the coming days.