Iran's so-called “mosquito fleet”, thousands of small, fast-attack boats paired with drones and coastal missiles, is proving it can still rattle global oil markets even after US strikes hammered much of Tehran's military infrastructure, according to defense analysts and US officials. While PresidentDonald Trumpsaid the US has “defeated the Iranian navy,” pointing to waves of strikes that have wiped out key military sites since late February, Tehran was still able to force close the Strait of Hormuz.

That is because in the narrow, oil-choked waters of the Strait of Hormuz, the war was never really about big ships. It is about the swarm, experts tell the New York Post. And with “thousands of them” operating in one of the world's most critical shipping lanes, experts have warned, “obnoxious” may be all it takes.

“They call them ‘mosquito fleets’ because they’re small and annoying — and they hit,” said former Pentagon official and Atlantic Council fellow Alex Plitsas. “But they’re enough to bite and be obnoxious.”

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Earlier this week, President Trump acknowledged that while US forces devastated Iran's conventional fleet, the smaller boats were largely left alone. He brushed them off as a minimal threat.

“Iran’s Navy is laying at the bottom of the sea, completely obliterated – 158 ships,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “What we have not hit are their small number of, what they call, “fast attack ships,” because we did not consider them much of a threat.”

But days later, those “small” boats are driving a big problem.

For years, Iran has built two navies—a traditional fleet of frigates and submarines, many now damaged or destroyed, and a shadow force run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, designed specifically for the tight confines of the Persian Gulf, according to US Navy and Pentagon assessments.

That second force is now front and center, and they are cheap, replaceable, and built to overwhelm, the report analysed.

The fleet includes thousands of small, high-speed boats capable of racing at 40 to 60 knots, armed with machine guns, rockets and, in some cases, anti-ship missiles or mine-laying gear, according to defence analysts and Congressional Research Service reports.

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