Tehran says the navy seized the Marshall Islands-flagged tanker after it hit an Iranian boat.
The Iranian military has said it seized a Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman after it collided with an Iranian boat, injuring several crew members, state media reported.
“An oil tanker flying the flag of the Marshall Islands was seized by Iranian army naval forces in the Persian Gulf after colliding with an Iranian boat in the Gulf of Oman and attempting to flee,” the statement said. statement from the military on Thursday.
“Two members of the boat’s crew are missing and several were injured from the ship’s collision with the boat.”
Earlier, the US Navy said Iranian forces seized a tanker in the Gulf of Oman in international waters.
Satellite tracking data for the ship from MarineTraffic.com showed the tanker in the Gulf of Oman, just north of Oman’s capital, Muscat, on Thursday afternoon.
It had just come from Kuwait and specified Houston, Texas in the United States as its destination.
The waters where the US ship was seized, near the Strait of Hormuz, are a bottleneck for at least a third of the world’s marine oil.
In a previously issued statement, the US Navy had said Iranian naval forces seized the Advantage Sweet oil tanker while it was “transiting international waters” in the Gulf of Oman.
“The Iranian government must immediately release the oil tanker,” added the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet, denouncing Iran’s “ongoing harassment of ships and interference with navigation rights in regional waters.”
Iran and the US have exchanged barbs over a spate of incidents in the sensitive waters of the Gulf in recent years.
Thursday’s seizure is the most recent incident in the Strait of Hormuz in which ships have been mysteriously attacked, drones shot down and oil tankers seized.
“In the past two years, Iran has unlawfully seized at least five commercial vessels sailing in the Middle East,” the US Navy said.
The seizure comes after the US, UK and European Union tightened sanctions against Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Monday, citing alleged human rights violations by Tehran.
The Western measures added to those already in place for Tehran’s harsh response to protests that have shaken Iran since the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September following her arrest for allegedly violating strict dress codes for women. women.
Iran later announced countermeasures, including financial sanctions and entry bans, targeting individuals and entities in the EU and the UK for “imposing and aggravating brutal sanctions”.
Tensions have escalated since 2018, when then-US President Donald Trump withdrew the US from a multinational accord that froze Iran’s nuclear program and reimposed crippling sanctions on the economy.
In July 2019, the Revolutionary Guards seized the British-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero in the same waterway for allegedly ramming a fishing boat, and released it two months later.
In 2021, Iran released a South Korean oil tanker it had held for months amid a dispute over billions of dollars seized from Seoul.