Multiple vessels hit or destroyed, UAE port hit as US and Iran trade fire in Hormuz

Cooper was careful to reframe the nature of the American operation on Monday. There are no ship-by-ship “escorts,” he said – rather, the US has assembled “multiple layers” of protection including ships, helicopters, aircraft, airborne early warning and electronic warfare. “I think we have a much better defensive arrangement in this process,” he said. The distinction matters for insurers: a layered defensive perimeter is harder to price than a named-vessel convoy, and the legal and underwriting implications of vessels operating inside a US-defined “enhanced security area” without a formal escort remain untested.