Photo: NAVCENT Public Affairs/US Naval Forces Central Command / Courtesy
The United States Navy intervened to stop the ships of the Navy of Iran attempting to seize two oil tankers in separate incidents in the gulf of oman on Wednesday morning, a defense official said.
The Central Command of the Naval Forces (Navcent), which has its base of operations in Bahrain, reported the events, which took place in international waters, in a statement, adding that members of the Iranian army came to shoot at one of the tankers.
According to the statement, in the early hours of Wednesday, The US Navy in the area received an “emergency” call from the Bahamas-flagged oil tanker Richmond Voyager, which was more than 20 miles (about 30 kilometers) off the coast of Muscat, heading towards the Arabian Sea.
The crew of the tanker informed the US Navy that an Iranian warship was approaching and asked them to stop.
After making the call and while a US Navy destroyer was heading into the area, Iranian personnel manning the vessel “fired multiple rounds” at the tanker, according to the statement.
The altercation did not leave casualties or “significant damage,” Navacet stressed, but “several projectiles hit the hull of the ship near” the crew quarters. By the time the US destroyer arrived on the scene, the Iranian ship had already left.
This altercation occurred hours before another Iranian navy ship to approach the Marshall Islands-flagged tanker TRF Moss, also in international waters of the Gulf of Oman.
In this case, the Iranian ship moved away from the tanker shortly after a US destroyer arrived in the area.
In May this year, the United States increased the rotation of ships and aircraft patrolling the Strait of Hormuz, which connects the Gulf of Oman with the Persian Gulf, following a spike in seizures of Iranian merchant ships.
Then, Iran accused the US of promoting “instability” and “insecurity” in the region and defended that it “has always guaranteed the safety of ships in the Strait of Hormuz.”
The Persian Gulf has been the scene of numerous incidents in recent years, including attacks on oil tankers and cargo ships, between the tensions between Iran and the United States due to the sanctions imposed by the latter on the sale of Iranian oil.
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