Operation Praying Mantis

Operation Praying Mantis was launched on 18 April 1988 as a direct US Navy retaliation for Iranian mining of Persian Gulf shipping lanes during the Iran-Iraq War. The operation destroyed Iranian oil platforms Sassan and Sirri, sank the frigates Sahand and Sabalan, and eliminated several smaller vessels in a single day, with the US suffering no ships lost. It remains the largest American surface naval engagement since the Second World War and the last occasion before 2026 when the Iranian Navy lost a surface combatant in battle.

The operation followed the near-sinking of the USS Samuel B. Roberts by an Iranian mine on 14 April 1988, confirming the pattern of Iranian mining provoking a US kinetic response that analysts in 2026 have cited as the doctrinal template for the current campaign. Praying Mantis was conducted under Operation Earnest Will, the broader 1987 to 1988 US mission to escort Kuwaiti tankers through the Gulf. The scale of the 1988 engagement was deliberately calibrated: Washington destroyed Iranian naval capability without triggering full escalation, and that calibration became the template for measuring proportionality in subsequent Iran-US confrontations. The USS Spruance seizure of the Iranian cargo ship Touska on 19 April 2026 was explicitly described as the first kinetic seizure of an Iranian vessel since the 1988 Tanker War.

By 2026 the precedent has been FAR surpassed in scale and method. CENTCOM cumulative vessel redirections passed 130 ships destroyed or disabled; a US fighter disabled an Iranian-flagged tanker in May 2026 by firing rounds into its rudder, extending the tactical repertoire beyond anything seen in 1988. On 27 June 2026 CENTCOM struck 10 targets across Sirik, Bandar-e Lengeh and Qeshm Island, specifically targeting Iran's minelayer vessels, a direct echo of the Praying Mantis pattern of responding to Iranian mining with kinetic strikes on naval infrastructure. Project Freedom, launched 3 to 4 May with 15,000 US personnel and over 100 aircraft, represents the institutional descendant of Earnest Will: a named escort operation in the same waterway, three decades later at an order of magnitude greater force.