Oil tanker in Gulf of Oman boarded by ‘unauthorized’ men in military uniforms in apparent seizure
Dubai: An oil tanker once at the center of a crisis between Iran and the United States was boarded in the Gulf of Oman by “unauthorized" men in military uniforms early on Thursday morning, an advisory group run by the British military and a private security firm warned. Details remained unclear in what was apparently the latest seizure of a vessel in the tense Middle East waterways.
However, suspicion immediately fell on Iran as the ship was once known as the Suez Rajan and had been involved in a yearlong dispute that ultimately saw the U.S. Justice Department seize 1 million barrels of Iranian crude oil on it.
The apparent seizure also comes after weeks of attacks by Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels on shipping in the Red Sea, including their largest barrage ever of drones and missiles launched late Tuesday. That has raised the risk of possible retaliatory strikes by U.S.-led forces now patrolling the vital waterway, especially after a United Nations Security Council vote on Wednesday condemning the Houthis and as American and British officials warned of potential consequences over the attacks.
The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which provides warnings to sailors in the Middle East, said Thursday's apparent seizure began early in the morning, in the waters between Oman and Iran in an area transited by ships coming in and out of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil traded passes. The U.K.
military-run group described receiving a report from the ship's security manager of hearing “unknown voices over the phone" alongside with the ship's captain. It said that further efforts to contact the ship had failed and that the men who boarded
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