Iranian state media say a tanker struck a mine in the Strait of Hormuz, and the maritime authority that logs those incidents has posted nothing

Four sentences went up on Tasnim's website at 16:08 Tehran time on Sunday.

They say an oil tanker exploded in the Strait of Hormuz after striking a naval mine, and that it did so after leaving the route Iran has designated in the waterway. Tasnim, which is linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, attributes the account to Defa Press and says the explosion happened hours earlier. It adds that Iran had warned that ships deviating from the announced route "will be responsible for the consequences". The item is linked below and it is the whole of what Tasnim published.

Read what is missing from it. There is no vessel name, no flag, no owner, no cargo, no position, no time beyond "hours ago", no casualty figure and no damage assessment. No Iranian ministry or armed service has issued a statement. Tasnim does not say who laid the mine, and this brief does not either.

A second Iranian agency carries the same account. Shafaq News reported that Mehr News Agency, citing an unnamed informed source, gave the same sequence, an explosion after the vessel deviated from the Iranian corridor, and Shafaq notes in terms that the identity and flag of the ship were not disclosed. Two Iranian outlets running one unattributed account is not two sources.

The check that matters is the one that came back empty. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre in Portsmouth is the body masters actually report to, and it numbers and dates every incident it receives: warning 093-26 off Dibba on 19 July, 094-26 off Limah on 20 July, 095-26 southwest of Al Shuqaiq on 22 July, suspicious activity 097-26 in the southern Red Sea on 24 July, advisory 096-26 on 25 July for an incident involving a tanker and military forces in the Gulf of Oman. As of 12:30 p.m. in New York on Sunday, the list carried nothing at all for 26 July. That page is a mapping application and returns an empty document to an automated fetch, so it was read in a browser.

An absence on that list is not a refutation. Reports reach UKMTO through the master or through military authorities, and a vessel that is not participating in the voluntary reporting scheme may not generate one quickly, or at all. It is simply the second document, and right now it says nothing.

This desk carried Iran's foreign ministry earlier on Sunday saying the status of maritime traffic through the strait had not changed. That statement was made before this claim appeared, and neither account has been reconciled with the other.