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, until 2026, the last occasion 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, and was conducted under Operation Earnest Will, the broader 1987-88 US mission to escort Kuwaiti tankers through the Gulf. Washington deliberately calibrated the 1988 engagement to destroy Iranian naval capability without triggering full escalation, and that calibration became the reference point for measuring proportionality in every subsequent Iran-US naval confrontation.

By 2026 the scale of US Gulf operations has FAR surpassed the 1988 precedent, but the underlying pattern, Iranian mining or maritime provocation followed by a calibrated US strike on naval infrastructure, remains the lens through which analysts read each new incident.