CENTCOM said American forces had permanently disabled the crude carrier M/T Downy off Kharg Island and M/T Stark 1 near Jask, and had completely destroyed the unladen carrier M/T Kylo, also known as Noxen, in the Gulf of Oman after directing its crew to abandon ship1. M/T stands for motor tanker. All three strikes came hours after the missile attack on the two American warships, and the release presents them as the reply to it.
CENTCOM's release accounts for Kylo's crew and for no other. It says nothing about the men aboard the Downy or the Stark 1, and no other source we hold fills that gap in either direction.
Admiral Brad Cooper, the CENTCOM Commander, put the rate on the record: "If you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose an even higher economic cost, taking out three of yours." He added: "We will not hesitate to defend American forces, and if necessary, destroy Iran's limited and exposed oil fleet"2. Anonymous officials had described a tanker-for-tanker rule to Axios on 1 September, and CENTCOM would not confirm it then. Cooper has now named the ratio himself and applied it inside a day.
A stated ratio does work that a strike alone does not. It hands an underwriter, a charterer and a shipowner a number they can put into a rate, so the cost of the next Iranian attack starts accruing before it happens. Note also where that cost lands. The missiles came from the IRGC; the reply hit crude carriers, which reaches Tehran's export earnings rather than the unit that fired.
