IRGC Navy

Distinct from Iran's conventional navy (IRIN), the IRGC Navy operates fast-attack craft, mines, and anti-ship missiles in the Persian Gulf's shallow southern littoral. Its main base is Bandar Abbas, directly overlooking the strait. On 17 April 2026 it published a formal four-condition transit order in Farsi via the IRGC-aligned outlet Tabnak: all vessels require prior Guard Corps authorisation; military vessels are barred entirely; compliance is tied to the Lebanon ceasefire holding. Two days later, USS Spruance seized the Iranian-flagged cargo ship Touska in the Gulf of Oman, the first kinetic vessel seizure since the 1988 Tanker War, prompting a written retaliation warning from Khatam al-Anbiya calling the seizure a ceasefire breach.

The IRGC Navy entered the 2026 conflict as Iran's asymmetric maritime instrument. Before hostilities it held approximately 65 operational surface vessels; CENTCOM reported destroying 130+ in what it called the largest naval attrition campaign since the Second World War. Despite those losses, Commander Admiral Tangsiri and intelligence chief Behnam Rezaei were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Bandar Abbas on 27 March 2026, yet the blockade held. The Majlis subsequently codified the Hormuz toll into domestic law, signalling that the strategy was designed to outlast its command structure.

The 4-condition order, published while Foreign Minister Araghchi separately announced a civilian corridor, exposed a public split between diplomatic and military chains of command. Ships that had received radio clearance under Araghchi's framework were still fired on under IRGC rules, producing the first non-Western diplomatic rupture of the war when India's Foreign Secretary warned Iran's ambassador of consequences. Whether a written Ceasefire can contain a force that has already overridden its own government's public commitments remains the central Hormuz question.