The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) conducted two drone strikes on Salalah port in Oman on 19 and 20 April, Omani authorities confirmed1. Muscat's statement recorded one expatriate worker injured and a damaged port crane. IRGC commanders told Iranian state media the corps was targeting a US naval vessel off the Omani coast. CENTCOM has issued no public confirmation or denial through Day 54.
Salalah is Oman's second port and a major international transit hub on the Arabian Sea. Muscat has hosted the earliest rounds of indirect US-Iran contact throughout the war, and Omani diplomats have shuttled quietly while Pakistan holds the verbal ceasefire channel. The strikes sit alongside Tasnim's 20 April claim that the corps launched drones at US Navy vessels in the Sea of Oman; CENTCOM has now held silence on that claim for 48-plus hours.
Two US and Omani institutions that would normally put paper behind an incident this serious have stayed quiet. A back-channel mediator whose territory has been struck cannot host the next round with the same confidence, which means Pakistan now holds both the verbal ceasefire and the only remaining neutral ground. For allied capitals tracking the strait, readouts on 19-20 April came from Tehran's wires rather than Washington's.
