00:00When you head out to the narrowest part, you sort of hug the coast of Musandan, which is the
00:06Omani exclave next to the UAE, and then you get to the narrowest point of the strait,
00:12which is 21 nautical miles. It's quite hazy out on the waters because of the topographical nature
00:20of the strait and the Gulf. We could see some ships that were not moving sort of to the east
00:26inside the Persian Gulf proper. Down in the Gulf of Oman on the other side of the strait,
00:31we couldn't really see anything. But in the strait itself, what was most striking for us
00:36was that in the course of a couple of hours, we saw about 300, I would estimate, small speed boats
00:46bouncing across the water in the direction of the Gulf states from Iran. They had been leaving
00:52the port of Bandar Abbas, one of the most important Iranian straits. And that's just
00:57across the strait from Qumzar, which is the northernmost tip of the Omani exclave of Musanda.
01:06That's crazy. So are all, if not most of those speed boats IRGC or Iranian origin? Is it unclear?
01:12And you write this very lovely phrased thing that you were just talking about, about how the topography
01:18of that region actually makes it easier for Iran to do this? Because as you were saying,
01:23the shallowness of the water, the intense heat and the jagged cliffs hemming in the straight moisture,
01:27they trap the moisture and they kind of make a cloud for them to hide these fast boats under.
01:33Where are they coming from? What are they doing?
01:35Yes. So I think the issue when it comes to the IRGC is that this trade, the vast majority of
01:41the boats
01:41that we were seeing is essentially a grey zone trading operation that has existed for a long
01:49time. There's always been smuggling, semi-official and official trading that goes across the straight.
01:55So going through the straight, traffic is at a halt, obviously, because there's a double blockade
02:01on the Strait of Hormuz. But there is all of this, and it's essentially petrol and diesel
02:06trading that is going on across the straight because there are massive arbitrage opportunities,
02:10which have been a problem for Iran in the past, actually may be turning out to be a benefit.
02:15So in each of those boats, you would see diesel in drums because it costs far less in Iran where
02:23it's heavily subsidised, a way of trying to reduce costs for the people of Iran in order to try and
02:29prevent further discontent and kind of protests that we saw in January. You can sell that markup in
02:37the Gulf states 500 to 1000 percent. So that's obviously driven this trade. So there are two
02:44aspects to this. The first is that because you've got so many boats engaged in that, it's much easier
02:51for IRGC mine laying boats to hide in plain sight. They can just go in from what we understand that
03:00you
03:00don't need special equipment. You can just load a couple of mines onto a speed boat, hide them under
03:05tarpaulin, mix in with that traffic going across the strait and then tip the mines into the sea.
03:13And it's not just that. This is also one of the ways that Iran is enforcing the blockade because
03:18it's got scouting boats that go out among that to make sure and chart where vessels are. Obviously,
03:25there are other ways of doing that. There are more high tech ways of doing that. But that's one of
03:30the
03:30things that's happening at the moment. How efficacious have these boats been? You write
03:35of this mosquito fleet, borrowing a phrase that we've seen used in the Ukraine war, Ukraine using
03:39boats like these to beat off the Russians in the Black Sea. How dependent is Iran on using smaller
03:46vessels like this to lay the mines, as you've described, menace ships, keep the blockade in
03:52place on their end? I think we are seeing the naval history being rewritten at a breakneck pace.
04:04Not since the introduction of the dreadnought class of ships before the First World War have
04:09we seen anything like this. And it probably is going to exceed all of that. And I've just recently
04:15been in the Black Sea with the Ukrainian Navy as well. And to see this sort of asymmetrical
04:22Navy. So the Russian Navy obviously built for conventional warfare, the US Navy the same. But
04:28both of those, the Russian Navy has been forced back. It's even been forced largely to abandon Crimea,
04:36which it obviously occupies. And similarly, the US Navy has been able to wipe out Iran's conventional
04:44Navy. But the fast boats of the IRGC's Navy, that's a different proposition. And it is literally
04:53trying to spot millions of mosquitoes. Obviously, they're not millions. That's an analogy. But yes,
04:59within that, you can see just how difficult the operation is going to be. And at night,
05:05these boats are hiding out in coves, in caves, or just in ports in Iran. Some of them can be
05:14spotted and identified using modern techniques, using drones, using the Reapers, and to a certain
05:20extent, using AI. But I think it's very difficult to find all of them. And that has been one of
05:24the
05:25challenges. And by some estimates, 5,000 to 6,000 mines have been laid in the Strait of Hormuz.
05:30And getting rid of those is going to be incredibly hard, even if the blockade is lifted.
05:36That's crazy. I don't think I realized that it was that simple to drop a mine. I was assuming it
05:40was a slightly bigger operation. I didn't realize they were literally dumping them off the sides
05:43of these fast boats. We've also spoken several times with Arsenio Dominguez, who is at the UN
05:48Maritime Organization, just about the welfare of these sailors and captains who have been trapped
05:53out on these boats for quite a while. I know you spent some time with them. Can you talk to
05:57us about,
05:58as much as you can, what it felt like on the water, whether you felt like you were in danger
06:03while you were there, and how these seafarers are holding up?
06:07I mean, I didn't have personal contact with any of the seafarers. I think it's very difficult to
06:12get onto those larger tankers or bulk carriers on the Gulf. I think it has been pretty difficult,
06:20all sorts of things being done to try and keep up spirits on those boats. So what I saw was
06:27with
06:27those smaller boats. And I think there's concern in Oman about how this trade is being potentially
06:39exposed. I think it's one of the reasons why they aren't keen on journalists being out on
06:44the water. But obviously, what we felt was the incredible heat of being out there. And I think you
06:50have a sense of that suffocation and this obvious desperation for seafarers to get home and wondering
06:58how long they're going to be stuck. There must be a pretty horrendous experience. And now it's
07:04sort of a game of chicken. And ironically, I think what I said earlier on was that initially,
07:11this smuggling process across the strait was a problem for Iran, because Iran is subsidizing the oil,
07:17this diesel that is then being sold. So, you know, subsidized Iranian diesel is being sold,
07:23not just in the Gulf, but also in Pakistan, to a degree that now may be a benefit to Iran,
07:29because obviously, they're facing these incredible storage problems, they're desperately trying to
07:33find places to store. By some estimates from some of the people that we've been speaking to,
07:38with these small boats, you can get up to 75,000 barrels of oil a day across the strait in
07:44small
07:44boats. That's a drop in the ocean, but every little helps. So, in a way, this thing that had
07:52been a problem for Iran is now being turned into something that just helps to alleviate the pressure.
07:58And obviously, the longer Iran can withstand the pressure on its economy, the longer it believes
08:05that it can hold out and potentially come out on top in this crisis.
08:09Andrew, let me ask you, lastly, what you learned through this experience, how your sense of
08:14the integrity of this blockade, I guess on both sides, is being shaped at this moment. I think
08:19we focus a lot on all of the military might that the US has marshaled, but coming away from this
08:24experience, what can you tell us that surprised you about the way that this is in place?
08:29Well, I think, you know, as I say, I was skeptical about what I would learn, because obviously,
08:34satellite data tells us so much more in terms of how ships are moving. First of all, I mean,
08:40it's a larger stretch of water than one might imagine. I mean, even at the narrowest stretch,
08:46it's the equivalent of the Dover to Calais crossing. So, there is quite a lot of space for
08:51people to try and inch their way through if you've got your AIS systems turned off. But what I think
08:57is
08:58just most striking is it is just an incredibly complicated, complex picture. One of the things that
09:03sort of people have suggested as well, you know, and Donald Trump has obviously threatened to do,
09:09is to blow these boats out of the water. But the chances of causing civilian damage and the
09:15civilian communities, poor rural communities living on the coast of Iran and living on the coast of
09:21Oman and even to the UAE, depend on this trade for their livelihood. So, you've got to take all of
09:27that into account before you consider kinetic action, you know, full force against these kind of boats.
09:35So, I think the overall lesson is that the strait is a lot more crowded than I expected. And the
09:43challenges of dealing with this are much greater than I believed.
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