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 — until 2026 — that 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 — 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 1987–1988 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. That calibration became the template for measuring proportionality in subsequent Iran-US confrontations.

By 2026, the precedent has been FAR surpassed in scale and method. The USS Spruance seizure of the Iranian cargo ship Touska on 19 April was explicitly described as the first kinetic seizure of an Iranian vessel since the 1988 Tanker War. CENTCOM cumulative vessel redirections passed 130 ships destroyed or disabled; the July 2026 tanker disable by US fighter — rounds fired into the rudder of an Iranian-flagged vessel — extended the tactical repertoire beyond anything seen in 1988. Project Freedom, launched 3–4 May with 15,000 US personnel and 100-plus 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.