Iran’s navy seized an oil tanker Thursday in the Gulf of Oman that only months earlier had seen its cargo of Iranian oil seized by the United States over sanctions linked to Tehran’s nuclear program.
The incident is likely to further escalate the tensions gripping the Mideast’s waterways.
The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said the seizure of the ship 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 private security firm Ambrey said that “four to five armed persons” boarded the ship, which it identified as the oil tanker St. Nikolas. It said the men covered the surveillance cameras as they boarded.
The tanker had been off the city of Basra, Iraq, loading crude oil bound for Aliaga, Turkey, for the Turkish refinery firm Tupras. Satellite-tracking data analyzed by the AP last showed the Marshall Islands-flagged tanker had turned and headed toward the port of Bandar-e Jask in Iran.
The vessel was previously known as the Suez Rajan when it was involved in a yearlong dispute beginning in 2021 that ultimately saw the U.S. Justice Department seize the 1
The remainder of this article is available in its entirety at CBN