The British Navy said two ships were set on fire near the Strait of Hormuz, the latest incidents after a weekend of shootings that raised tensions in the vital waterway and kept shipping at a near standstill.
An Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps ship approached a container ship about 15 nautical miles off the coast of Oman and opened fire, causing “heavy damage” to the vessel’s bridge, Britain’s merchant marine operations said in a statement. Another cargo ship said it was fired upon 8 nautical miles from Iran. The agency has not identified either vessel.
The incidents show the high risk of transiting the world’s most important energy bottleneck, even as US President Donald Trump indefinitely extended the truce with Iran just before it expired. He maintained a naval blockade of Iranian ships after planned peace talks between the two sides failed to take place.
Iran has said it will maintain control of the Strait of Hormuz until the US lifts the blockade, and the strait remained largely free of commercial traffic on Tuesday. However, some Iranian oil tankers have sailed past the US barrier in recent days, according to data intelligence company Vortex.
Trump previously said that without a blockade, “there can never be a deal with Iran unless we blow up the rest of their country, including their leaders! Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said there were some signs the US was ready to break the blockade, citing Tehran’s UN envoy Amir-Saeid Iravani. He gave no further details.
The UKMTO said on Saturday that IRGC gunboats approached the tanker off the coast of Oman before firing on it. The container ship was then hit by an unknown projectile in a separate incident, UKMTO said later. A period of chaos followed after Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz open on Friday, setting off a race among ships to leave the Persian Gulf.
Many of those vessels turned back after Iran closed the strait hours later on Saturday after Trump said the US naval blockade would remain.
This article was generated from an automated news agency source without text modification.
