Iran says it hit 10 ships. A seafarer is dead. Brent closed $101.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Wednesday they had attacked 10 ships near the Strait of Hormuz — two American vessels and eight tankers — hours after the United States destroyed five Iranian crude carriers. It is the biggest declared wave of shipping attacks since the six-month war began. One seafarer was killed aboard the Gibraltar-flagged oil-products tanker Hercules Star at anchorage off Dubai. Another crew member was missing, the charterer, Peninsula, said. The War desk files a body, a listing hull, and a number the American reader can feel: Brent settled $101.21.

The Guards called the 10 vessels “noncompliant,” a word they use for ships that try the waterway without their leave. U.S. Central Command answered on the American hulls: every recent attempt on a U.S. military vessel failed. The British maritime desk, UKMTO, reported a ship in the vicinity listing after a projectile. The Hercules Star was not underway. It was parked. That is the new pattern. The Institute for the Study of War and the Iraqi government put a drone into a fuel-oil tanker in Iraqi waters, about two million barrels, no leak, no crew dead. An LNG hull was reported damaged at Khor Fakkan. The Guards are shooting at ships that are sitting still.

Iran continues to try to hit U.S. naval ships, and for every time they do that or try to do that, they’re going to lose tankers.

CENTCOM has now counted 10 Iranian tankers destroyed since Saturday. The five named this morning — Kaviz, Charminar, Horizon 1, Riesco, Derya — sit on that list. Tehran said it will publish a larger off-limits chart, out as far as the water off Chabahar, near Pakistan. Hormuz used to move eight to nine million barrels a day. Shippers put the live flow near two. Forty-two hulls were still waiting on Monday. A queue is not a strait.

The tape took the fire and then some. Brent jumped 3.36 percent and printed a high of $101.87 before it closed $101.21, the first three-figure settlement since July. AAA’s national average for regular is still $4.22. Diesel is $5.94, a record on the American chart. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in Colombia, kept the ratio he named this morning: for every shot they take at a Navy ship, they lose tankers. The gallon does not take dictation. Eight weeks from the midterm, $4.22 is a ballot.

This is day 194. Qatar still wants the strait opened with no conditions. The president still says gasoline will fall when America wins. The War desk files the evening as it is: ten ships claimed, one seafarer dead, a Navy that says it was not hit, and a pump that has not dropped precipitously.