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Video: U.S. Marines Board Tanker Linked to Houthi Rebels

U.S. Marines fast rope onto the deck of the product tanker Charminar (USMC / Central Command)
U.S. Marines fast rope onto the deck of the product tanker Charminar (USMC / Central Command)

Published Jul 26, 2026 7:41 PM by The Maritime Executive

On Saturday, U.S. forces intercepted the falsely-flagged product tanker Charminar for a flag verification boarding, part of the new U.S. effort to suppress Iranian oil exports.

Charminar is a 50,000 dwt product tanker built in 2005. She is falsely flagged in the Comoros Islands and was previously part of the notorious Fractal Marine fleet. She was sold to anonymous owners in 2025. 

Charminar was breaching the U.S. blockade line, but she has a specific mission that makes her even more relevant to U.S. objectives, according to TankerTrackers.com. The consultancy's observations suggest that she is engaged in moving Iranian fuel to Yemen's Houthi rebels, who control the country's northwestern corner and have recently begun a campaign against Saudi shipping in the Red Sea. The Houthi pressure on Saudi energy interests marks a significant horizontal escalation of the Hormuz conflict into a new and economically-sensitive area. 

TankerTrackers.com has also corrected the identification of the latest tanker to be struck in a U.S. attack. U.S. Central Command identified the vessel as the Lavine, a tanker that AIS data shows to be located in the South China Sea. The vessel involved was actually the Disha (IMO 8818219), the firm's analysts confirmed.

Disha has been sanctioned for two years. Like Charminar, Disha had been spotted along the Houthi-controlled coastline of northwestern Yemen at several points in the past, according to the consultancy's visual sightings log. 

Disha is Indian-crewed, and the Forward Seaman's Union of India expressed outrage at the strike, though luckily no crewmembers were injured.

"Vessels with full Indian crews are being systematically targeted. Yet the response remains the same — silence," the FSUI wrote in a statement. "No accountability for the Indian seafarers already killed in earlier attacks."

TankerTrackers.com maintains a full list of sanctioned and high-risk vessels, a resource that foreign mariners can use to determine if the risk profile of the ship aligns with the wage premium offered for joining the crew.