Strait of Hormuz - In my personal opinion, the US Navy has largely succeeded in clearing the Strait of Hormuz from Iranian mines. But the IRGC is not ready to give up the idea that its mines still control the waterway. They know that new minefields won't last, as US forces quickly clear them and hit launch sites, as the past two weeks have shown. So I believe they switched to small boats that attach explosives to tankers, then blame the explosions on mines. In other cases, small UAVs seem to be the real cause, but the IRGC still calls it a mine, even when UKMTO and the ships' own crews report otherwise, to protect its pride and make the world believe it really controls the strait. To be fair, it's hard to confirm the full truth. US and IRGC accounts conflict, and the UKMTO does not detail exactly how each incident unfolds. But I believe this is what is really happening. Even with a massive "wall of steel" blockade by the US Navy, the strait is too large to observe any small boat for all those miles, and small UAVs are difficult to detect and shoot down, especially when launched from another ship or a hidden shore location, which is usually the source.