(Publish from Houston Texas USA)
(Mian Iftikhar Ahmad)
GPS spoofing and signal jamming create ghost ships on radar screens, raising fears for global oil trade and maritime safety in the Strait of Hormuz.
A new and dangerous form of warfare has erupted in the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical oil passageway, where traditional missiles and warships are being replaced by electronic waves and satellite signal interference, and this latest wave of electronic warfare has deeply alarmed global experts as reports from Bloomberg and various maritime security agencies confirm that a powerful wave of electronic interference has swept through the region, successfully fooling even the most advanced naval radars and tracking systems, resulting in the sudden appearance of dozens of new clusters of ships on radar screens that do not actually exist in reality, and experts have described this phenomenon as a new and extremely dangerous dimension of naval electronic warfare that not only poses severe threats to regional security but has also put global trade and energy markets directly in its crosshairs.
According to maritime experts and intelligence analysts, this interference is being carried out through two distinct methods, the first being GPS jamming which completely blocks satellite signals reaching the vessels, while the second and more advanced method is GPS spoofing which involves feeding false position data to ships, causing them to appear somewhere other than their actual location, and it is this spoofing technique that is causing radar screens to display ships that do not exist at those locations while real vessels hide their true positions and appear elsewhere, and experts suggest that spoofing is currently being used on a much wider scale in the Strait of Hormuz, leading to extremely bizarre and unprecedented scenes on tracking systems worldwide.
A striking example of this confusion is the oil tanker Asprouda, which appeared on tracking systems traveling at an impossible speed of one hundred and two knots, despite the fact that this class of tanker has a maximum speed of only sixteen knots and can never achieve such velocity, making it abundantly clear that its signals were being manipulated, similarly, some vessels were shown on radar deep inside land areas near an airport in Abu Dhabi and close to a nuclear power plant, locations where no ship could possibly navigate, and these incidents have convinced experts that this is not a case of ordinary signal malfunction but rather a well-planned and coordinated electronic attack.
The clusters of ships on radar screens are forming strange and unusual shapes, with vessels at one location arranged in a circular formation while at another they formed an inverted Z shape, which is clear evidence of data manipulation through an intelligent system, and experts believe these shapes are not accidental but may be part of some specific military exercise or strategy that is interfering with the movement of civilian commercial vessels.
This electronic interference has created severe risks for global trade, and according to international news agencies, on February twenty-seventh, one hundred and twenty ships successfully transited the Strait of Hormuz, but just five days later on March fourth, that number had plummeted to only five, indicating the extreme fear among shipping companies about using this route, and experts warn that due to false GPS information, the risk of ships colliding with each other or running into shallow waters has increased dramatically, which could lead to a major maritime disaster at any moment.
This situation has caused oil storage facilities in Gulf countries to fill up rapidly, forcing Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates to reduce their oil production because they are running out of storage capacity and cannot export their oil due to ships avoiding the strait, as a result, Brent crude oil prices briefly approached one hundred and twenty dollars per barrel, and experts believe that if this situation continues, oil prices could skyrocket even further.
Analysts believe this interference could be a precursor to a major naval operation, and a majority of experts suspect Iran as the likely source of this electronic warfare, given Iran’s possession of advanced electronic warfare technology and its history of successfully hijacking American drones using similar methods in the past, and according to experts, Iran aims to make the Strait of Hormuz digitally impassable, thereby paralyzing global trade without engaging in direct military confrontation, and this represents a psychological strategy of area denial that will cause ships to voluntarily avoid using this route.
On the other hand, the United States, Israel, and Gulf countries are also using electronic warfare for their defensive purposes, but these nations attempt to minimize the impact on civilian vessels, and experts state that this silent wave of electronic warfare in the Strait of Hormuz proves that the conflict is no longer limited to conventional weapons, as both sides are now attempting to blind each other using the latest technology.
This situation has deeply worried the international community about whether this electronic interference is a prelude to a major naval attack, and experts warn that if this continues, this silent war at sea could permanently cripple global trade, and in the coming days, the number of ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz may decrease further, resulting in oil shortages and a severe blow to the global economy.