Iran seizes oil tankers in the Persian Gulf

The St. Nicholas was seized by the US Navy in 2023 for violating sanctions – and now the ship may have been hijacked by armed men from Iran.

Iran has seized an “American oil tanker” in the Gulf of Oman, according to a report by the semi-official Tasnim news agency. The agency stated that the basis was on instructions from the Iranian judiciary. The UKMTO had previously reported the hijacking of a tanker in waters 50 nautical miles east of Oman. Armed men boarded the Marshall Islands-flagged ship and then set course for Iran.

British maritime security company Ambrey said that the tanker's tracking system was stopped while it was heading towards the Iranian port of Bandar Jask on the northern coast of the Gulf of Oman. The tanker was loaded in the Iraqi port of Basra and was heading to the Turkish port of Aliaga on the western coast of Turkey.

The connection is broken

UKMTO said the gunmen were wearing black uniforms and masks. The tanker's senior security officer said that the ship changed its course towards Iranian territorial waters. And then the connection was cut off. The US Navy's Fifth Fleet, active in the region, did not initially comment on this information.

According to the location service TankerTrackers, the tanker is said to be “St. One thousand barrels of oil. After unloading its cargo of crude oil, the ship docked in the port of “St. present time.

The incident contributes to uncertainty about commercial shipping in the region. The Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have been attacking shipping ships in the Red Sea since October in order to support the extremist Islamic movement Hamas' fight in the Gaza Strip against Israel. They focus their attacks on the Bab al-Mandab Strait at the intersection of the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea. The tanker was hijacked much further east, not far from the Strait of Hormuz, which connects the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea. (APA/Reuters)