Indonesian Navy Confirms US Warship Movement in Malacca Strait

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - The Indonesian Navy (TNI AL) has confirmed the movement of a United States (US) warship in the Malacca Strait area, which had been widely reported as potentially related to an operation to hunt an Iranian tanker.

The Head of the Navy Information Service (Kadispenal), First Admiral Tunggul, stated that based on monitoring from the Automatic Identification System (AIS), the US warship USS Miguel Keith was detected in the waters east of Belawan on Saturday (18/4/2026) around 15:00 WIB.

“Based on the monitoring results from the Automatic Identification System (AIS) Publish, it is indeed true that USS Miguel Keith was monitored on AIS at 15:00 WIB in the waters east of Belawan, heading northwest at a speed of 13.1 knots (18/4/2026),” Tunggul told Kompas.com on Saturday.

Tunggul explained that the US warship was carrying out the right of transit passage in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, specifically Articles 37, 38, and 39.

“The US warship was conducting navigation, namely the Right of Transit Passage (Transit Passage) in accordance with Articles 37, 38, and 39 of UNCLOS 1982, passing through the Malacca Strait, which is a strait used for international navigation connecting open seas/EEZ,” he clarified.

However, Tunggul did not respond to whether the activity was related to a special military operation as linked to the issue of hunting an Iranian tanker.

The statement was issued by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, who mentioned that they would conduct maritime prevention activities against ships suspected of being involved in illegal oil transportation.