U.S. Forces Conduct Armed Takeover of Oil Tanker in Indian Ocean’s International Waters

U.S. Navy and Coast Guard units mounted a joint operation targeting the oil tanker Aquila II in international waters in the Indian Ocean on February 9, with the vessel boarded and commandeered by U.S. forces. The 274 metre ship and its 700,000 barrels of Venezuelan crude oil are expected to be appropriated by the United States without compensation paid to the owners. U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the vessel had been tracked from the Caribbean after departing Venezuelan waters in early January, with the Department of War stating that it "tracked and hunted" the Aquila II from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean. This relied on a combination of satellite surveillance, Automatic Identification System data, and shipborne sensors. The Aquila II is at least the eighth vessel targeted for forceful seizure by U.S. forces as part of an effort to block Venezuelan oil exports, which is itself part of a much broader campaign of military operations that on January 3 included the abduction of the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro.

The targeting of Venezuelan shipping included the commandeering of the tanker the Centuries owned by the China-based firm VSatau Tijana Oil Trading in late December, which had not been placed on any sanctions list. Beyond the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean, operations against civilian tankers have also extended to the international waters of the Atlantic, with U.S. Navy and Coast Guard units on January 7 having boarded and took over the oil tanker Marinera in the Atlantic Ocean, after a pursuit that lasted over 14 days. Although these operations have been widely criticised as illegal, U.S. officials speaking to the Wall Street Journal recently confirmed that a similar campaign targeting Iranian oil exports is reported to currently be under consideration. Multiple NATO members have launched similar attacks targeting tankers carrying Russian oil in international waters, albeit at lower levels of intensity. 

Commenting on ongoing Western operations against civilian shipping in international waters, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently warned: “the U.S. objective – to dominate the world economy – is being realised using a fairly large number of coercive measures that are incompatible with fair competition.” To achieve this objective, the U.S. leadership “want to take control of all the routes for providing the world’s leading countries and all continents with energy resources.” “A ‘war’ against tankers in the open sea is being waged,” he added. Although operations are primarily focused on oil shipments, they have also targeted other forms of civilian shipping, with a notable example being the boarding of a cargo ship transporting Chinese industrial goods to Iran in international waters in November 2025, which were then destroyed by U.S. forces. The U.S. Marine Corps in January initiated large scale training exercises for similar boarding operations targeting civilian vessels in international waters. The targeting of civilian shipping is expected to become increasingly frequent as Western Bloc states seek to constrain the international trade of their adversaries.