An American aircraft fired missiles at the unladen and US-sanctioned Belma, after the vessel repeatedly ignored warnings that it was violating the blockade by sailing through international waters toward Kharg Island, the Central Command said in a social-media post early Thursday.

The operation so deep within the gulf, far from the Strait of Hormuz, may signal the US is widening the scope from its first blockade. That was focused on intercepting vessels attempting to cross an American-imposed blockade line beyond the waterway in the Gulf of Oman.

"While this is new in terms of the implementation occurring within the gulf, it's still consistent with their stated goal of blockading all Iranian ports and coastal areas," said Jennifer Parker, an adjunct professor at the University of Western Australia Defence and Security Institute.

Ship-tracking data showed the Belma sailing north toward Kharg late on Wednesday, before first making a slight deviation to the northwest, and then a sharp turn away from the island early on Thursday after it was hit.

The strike comes amid heightened tensions in Hormuz and surrounding waters. Recent attacks by Iran on vessels in the waterway have forced shipowners to rethink plans to transit and have pushed gulf oil and gas producers to review plans to ramp up exports. The head of the International Energy Agency warned that the global economy might once again be in peril if the conflict that's choking the strait wasn't resolved in a matter of weeks.

Visible traffic through the strait remained light on Thursday. A US-sanctioned liquefied petroleum gas carrier made an outbound transit with its transponder turned on, while an Iran-bound bulk carrier loaded with soybean meal crossed into the Persian Gulf. The US Navy said it would allow shipments of bulk food, medical supplies, and other goods necessary to the survival of Iran's civilian population through the blockade once it vets the vessel's requests to transit.

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