Oman Maritime Security Centre

 

Two sailors are missing and 23 others have been rescued following an attack on an oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, Oman says.

Oman's Maritime Security Centre said the Panama-flagged El Gaia was being towed to an Omani port on Tuesday after a fire broke out in its engine room, adding that the vessel was targeted 1.3 nautical miles (2.4km) north of the Musandam peninsula.

On Monday, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said the tanker hit naval mines and caught fire while passing through what they described as a restricted and unsafe route.

But the US military insisted the Iranian report was false. It said the tanker was struck by an Iranian missile last month and again by a drone over the weekend.

The UK Maritime Trade Operations centre, meanwhile, said it had received a report of a fire breaking out on board a vessel that was struck by an unknown projectile while transiting the Strait of Hormuz in the early hours of Sunday.

Earlier this month, Iran made a similar claim about an incident that killed two Filipino sailors on a Saudi-owned oil supertanker in the crucial waterway.

The Revolutionary Guards said the vessel, Sidr, caught fire after hitting a naval mine. But Saudi authorities said it was targeted by Iran and maritime security firms reported that it was hit by projectiles north of Musandam.

The International Maritime Organization says at least 22 seafarers have been killed in 79 confirmed incidents in the Strait of Hormuz and the rest of the Middle East since the start of the US and Israel's war with Iran at the end of February.

Also on Tuesday, Iran's semi-official Fars news agency reported that "enemy drones" had targeted two fishing boats in the strait overnight near the Iranian port of Kargan, about 80km (50 miles) north-east of Musandam.

Fars, which is linked to the Revolutionary Guards, cited the deputy governor of Hormozgan province as saying that several fishermen were reported missing following the incident and that a search-and-rescue operation was under way.

Later, a spokesman for the US military's Central Command (Centcom) told the news website Axios that its forces had destroyed two boats which tried to steal a sea drone.

"Iranian small boats recently attempted to take possession of a US unmanned surface vessel, but they were unsuccessful after Centcom forcefully responded," Capt Tim Hawkins said.

The Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of global oil and gas shipments usually pass, has effectively been closed due to Iranian missile and drone attacks on commercial vessels and a US naval blockade of Iranian ports.

The US and Iran reached a preliminary agreement to end the war and reopen the strait in June, but it collapsed within weeks after the Iranian attacks on shipping resumed and the US reinstated its blockade.

Iran has insisted it will not give up some measure of control over the waterway and has targeted vessels using a southern route through Omani waters that avoids its preferred route through Iranian waters.

 

SOURCE/AUTHOR : BBC NEWS/David Gritten