A supertanker burns in the Strait of Hormuz, and the accounts do not match

What Iran says

The IRGC Navy said the tanker, which it named as the Algaya, hit naval mines in the southern part of the Strait of Hormuz while attempting to pass through a prohibited zone.

Its press service described the state of the vessel: "Attempts to contain the fire have failed, and the entire tanker has been engulfed in flames."

The IRGC Navy added that it had previously warned vessel crews about the danger of using what it called an unauthorised route.

That account places responsibility on the ship. It presents the mines as a known hazard in a marked area, and the tanker as having entered it against warnings.

What US Central Command says

CENTCOM rejected the explanation outright.

It said the vessel had been struck by an Iranian missile the previous month, and had recently been struck again by an Iranian drone. It characterised the mine account as part of a pattern: "The IRGC's false claim is yet another example of their lies and intimidation attempts," the command said, adding that Iran was attempting to impede commercial vessels in the strait.

The vessel, sailing under a Panamanian flag and also reported as the El Gaia, was being towed by a regional partner.

The crew

India's Ministry of External Affairs said fourteen Indian crew were aboard. Thirteen were rescued. Search and rescue operations were continuing for the fourteenth.

The MEA statement is the only element of the incident that both sides describe the same way.

Why the dispute is the story

Two governments describing the same burning ship in incompatible terms is not incidental to the Hormuz crisis. It is the crisis.

Iran has restricted the strait since the war began, requiring vessels to obtain permission and weighing a system of transit fees. Its claim that a tanker strayed into a prohibited zone and hit mines supports that framework: it presents the restrictions as a safety regime, and the danger as the consequence of ignoring it.

The American account inverts the logic. If the vessel was struck by an Iranian missile and then an Iranian drone, then the danger in the strait is not a hazard that ships wander into but one directed at them, and Iran's restrictions are not a safety regime but a blockade with a legal costume.

Neither account can be independently confirmed from outside. What can be said is that each is a claim by a named party with a position to defend, and that the two cannot both be true.

The wider picture

The fire comes at a moment when the alternatives to Hormuz have narrowed. Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline, which moves crude to the Red Sea without using the strait, was shut last week after drone strikes launched from Iraq. Houthi forces have taken control of the Bab el-Mandeb strait at the other end of the Red Sea.

A meeting in Salalah, Oman, at which Iran, Iraq and Gulf states were to discuss temporary maritime routes through Hormuz, was postponed indefinitely.

Brent crude has traded above $107 a barrel.

What happens to the ship

The tanker is under tow. Iran says the fire could not be contained and has spread across the whole vessel. Neither side has said where it is being taken, or what becomes of the cargo.

For the thirteen rescued Indian crew, the dispute over cause is academic. For the one still missing, it is not yet a question anyone has answered.