The Army’s Navy says a tanker was damaged and set ablaze east of Hormuz after switching off tracking systems and violating a prohibited zone, as an IRGC adviser warns any U.S. ground invasion would end in mass American captures and surrender.

TEHRAN -- Iran’s Army Navy announced Tuesday that an offending oil tanker sustained damage and caught fire east of the Strait of Hormuz after switching off its tracking systems and attempting to cross a prohibited zone.

“Around midday today, an offending tanker that had sustained damage and caught fire while attempting to cross the prohibited zone east of the Strait of Hormuz by switching off its tracking systems was identified by the Army Navy’s surveillance teams,” the public relations office of the Army Navy said.

The Navy announced that, with a new formation and the deployment of operational units east of the Strait of Hormuz and across the Arabian Sea and the Sea of Oman, it maintains complete oversight and continuous, real-time surveillance of all enemy activities and the movement of vessels.

The Navy advised all vessels, in compliance with international regulations, to strictly refrain from switching off their electronic equipment and to coordinate their passage with the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran to ensure safe transit.

The announcement followed a statement Monday by the public relations office of the Navy of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, which said commercial vessels and oil tankers cooperating with the “terrorist plunderers” of the United States in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf will face a decisive response.

The IRGC Navy also announced that a third crude oil supertanker was struck and engulfed in flames in the Strait of Hormuz in the morning after ignoring warnings and switching off its navigation system.

Iran has restricted transit through the Strait of Hormuz since the early days of the U.S.-Israeli war of aggression that began on February 28 and came to a temporary halt under a ceasefire in early April amid the Islamic Republic’s resistance and successful retaliatory operations.

Commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has fallen sharply, with vessel movements dropping to single digits amid the ongoing war on Iran and the restrictions on shipping through the strategic waterway. Tehran has said it will not reopen the waterway until the United States meets its demands and takes steps to restore Iran’s trust.

Brig. Gen. Muhammad Reza Naqdi, senior adviser to the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, said Tuesday that if the U.S. launches a ground attack, it will take so many prisoners that it will be forced to raise the white flag of surrender.

Naqdi said the armed forces of the Islamic Republic possess the necessary capabilities to respond to threats, and their decisions and calculations must be trusted, because military action and even its timing are determined based on strategic considerations and the interests of the country.

Naqdi said that today America’s economic interests are scattered throughout the world and all those interests are vulnerable.

“With the mobilization of the popular regional waves, all these interests can be destroyed. Today we must organize an offensive movement and all of us must be fighters in this arena.”

Naqdi stressed that there is no requirement to rely on missiles. “We have the missiles and we have enough of them. Whenever it is necessary and the order is issued, the missiles will hit the target they must hit; God willing, no one has any doubt in this regard,” he said.

Naqdi said regarding the possibility of a U.S. ground attack on Iran: “Where on earth does America want to come? I think even in very private American meetings, there is basically no discussion of a ground attack. They talk about this in media propaganda, but even in secret and in each other’s ears they have not spoken about a ground attack, because they know what will happen to them.”

He added that Iraq has one-fourth of our land and Afghanistan one-third of our land, and the population of each of these countries is half of Iran’s population. Moreover, when the Americans attacked these two countries, half of Iraq’s territory was in the hands of opponents and half of Afghanistan was in the hands of opponents of the government. They attacked under such conditions, but their war in both countries lasted 20 years.

Naqdi continued that the Americans spent 3,000 billion dollars in Afghanistan and 4,000 billion dollars in Iraq and fought for 20 years, but what was the result? In Afghanistan, they left behind 85 billion dollars in weapons and fled, and in Iraq they were expelled disgracefully.

“Which calculating person would be willing to decide on a ground attack considering such an experience? The fate of a ground attack is the same. If they spent 3 or 4 thousand billion dollars there and their war lasted 20 years, what will happen here, where the war will not even last 20 days? They will give so many prisoners that they themselves will come and surrender and raise the flag of surrender.”

He stressed that he does not think the Americans “have even had an initial and very preliminary discussion about a ground attack with themselves. Such a decision has not even taken shape in their minds, because they know they cannot do this”.

Naqdi said regarding the state of the U.S. Navy that they have a navy, but their fleet has been wandering for seven months.

“The headquarters of these vessels is in Bahrain. They have been present in the Persian Gulf for 100 years, but since the start of the war they have fled and cannot come within a thousand kilometers, because they know what might happen to them.”

Naqdi said regarding U.S. casualties in the region: “You fire one missile and suddenly see 200 Americans killed in Jordan. They do not announce this news, but their Red Crescent forces pass this information to us and we have also collected the statistics.”

“They announce that since the first day of the war only 18 U.S. Army personnel have been killed; this is like satire. Meanwhile, when attacks hit their hotels in Bahrain, ambulances were constantly coming and going from the beginning of the night until morning. Were those killed there jinn?”