Iran said on 27 September that it had seized a US Navy Kingfish mine-hunting underwater vehicle in the Strait of Hormuz1. Hossein Mohebbi, spokesman for Iran's Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), valued it at several million dollars. Captain Tim Hawkins of US Central Command (CENTCOM) told Al Jazeera the US kept "positive control of all of our operational drone assets" and called the claim "clearly desperate"2. The MK 18 Mod 2 Kingfish is about 3.5m long and rated to 600m. No independent source has confirmed the seizure.
It is Tehran's second such claim in three weeks. Iran showed footage in early September of what it said was a recovered US underwater vehicle that CENTCOM said was an older drone that had malfunctioned. If the Iranian account is true, the US lost a mine-hunting vehicle in a live theatre; if not, the claim still works for Tehran as propaganda.
Small mine-hunting autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) exist so a cheap vehicle goes where a crew should not, and in Hormuz that now means waters where an adversary may try to pick up whatever fails. The allied package of British and French robot minehunters has worked the same theatre since June.
