Twelve attacks on merchant shipping in one week — ten of them inside the Strait of Hormuz — and even that figure is almost certainly an undercount. UK Maritime Trade Operations said in its weekly report, published Friday, that most vessels struck in the region are not reporting incidents directly, meaning the publicly available attack statistics rest on an incomplete base.

UKMTO said it is aware of additional incidents through other sources but cannot include them in its reporting without sufficient verification. The admission lands amid a sharp escalation in strikes against commercial vessels over the past two weeks, and it undermines any shipper or underwriter trying to price risk in the world's most important crude chokepoint on the strength of published numbers alone.

How bad was the latest week?

Of the 12 attacks UKMTO recorded, six vessels continued their voyages or reached port. Two were disabled or left not under command. Three had unconfirmed damage or outcomes. One vessel — the Singapore-flagged containership GFS Pride — was lost after being struck by a projectile.

The report also documents 74 projectile strikes since July 6, with 55 of them — nearly three-quarters — occurring along the southern route through the strait. That single data point carries the heaviest commercial weight: the southern corridor is the passage U.S. forces present as the safer, facilitated option, and it is absorbing the majority of recorded fire.

What does the transit data actually show?

The picture gets murkier when the counting starts. For the seven days ending October 14, UKMTO recorded 254 combined transits — 129 inbound, 125 outbound — down from 275 the previous week. Traffic remains roughly 70% below pre-conflict levels.

Only 42 of those 254 movements were observed through Automatic Identification System data. The remaining 212 came from U.S.-reported facilitated transits, which include ships operating with AIS switched off. UKMTO cautioned that the U.S.-supplied figures and associated totals cannot currently be independently verified.

Against that, U.S. Central Command commander Adm. Brad Cooper said in a video statement Friday: "Let me be clear: the Strait of Hormuz is controlled by the United States and our regional partners, not Iran. And it remains open for business."

Cooper reported approximately 400 merchant transits over the preceding seven days, said U.S. forces helped Gulf partners move more than 100 million barrels of crude in the same period, and put cumulative U.S.-assisted crude shipments above 1.3 billion barrels in recent months. He did not specify the exact dates covered by his 400-transit figure, leaving open the possibility that the gap against UKMTO's 254 reflects separate reporting periods or counting methods rather than a factual dispute.

Who controls the waterway?

Iran disputes the American account outright. Iranian army chief Maj. Gen. Amir Hatami said Thursday that the strait would remain closed until the rights of the Iranian people were respected.

The Joint Maritime Information Center's latest advisory, published October 15, describes two lanes in parallel existence: a northern Iranian-controlled route and a southern Omani corridor. The advisory warns that ships broadcasting AIS face an elevated risk of targeting and instructions to divert toward the Iranian route. UKMTO adds that most vessels still broadcasting AIS continue to use the Iranian route, even as U.S.-facilitated traffic accounts for the majority of reported transits.

What does this mean for operators?

For carriers and forwarders, the operational consequences are concrete. Choosing AIS-on means compliance and visibility but, per JMIC, a higher risk of being targeted and diverted north. Choosing the U.S.-facilitated southern corridor means escort cover but exposure to the route where nearly three-quarters of documented projectile strikes have landed since July 6. There is no clean option, and the loss of GFS Pride shows the tail risk is a hull, not a delay.

The reporting gap cuts both ways. If most attacked vessels stay silent — whether under duress, for insurance reasons, or to avoid diversion — then documented strike counts understate danger for seafarers, and war-risk premiums calibrated to public data may lag the actual threat. Cooper's confident figures, unverifiable through AIS, cannot be checked against them. Washington says the strait is open for business; Tehran says it is closed; the vessels switching off their transponders are voting with their antennas, and nobody is counting all of them.

With traffic still down about 70% from pre-conflict levels and attacks accelerating over the past two weeks, the trajectory points to continued diversion, higher risk premia, and a deepening reliance on U.S.-escorted transit that no third party can yet independently audit.