This image from video provided to The Associated Press by a Middle East defense official shows a helicopter attack on a ship near the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday.
AP
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AP
This image from video provided to The Associated Press by a Middle East defense official shows a helicopter attack on a ship near the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday.
AP
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Commandos from Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard swooped from a helicopter onto an Israel-linked container ship near the Strait of Hormuz and captured the vessel today. Saturday, the latest in a series of attacks between the two countries.
Middle East braced for potential Iranian retaliation for suspected Israeli attack earlier this month on the Iranian consulate building in Syria killed 12 people, including a senior Guard general who had commanded the expeditionary Quds Force.
Israel’s broader war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip is now six months old and is fueling decades-long tensions across the region.
Iran’s state-run IRNA said a special forces unit of the Guards navy carried out the attack on the ship, which other media in the country widely identified as the Portuguese-flagged MSC Aries. Nha, a container ship affiliated with London-based Zodiac Maritime.
Zodiac Maritime is part of Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer’s Zodiac Group. Zodiac declined to comment and referred questions to MSC, which did not immediately respond.
Earlier, a Middle Eastern defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, shared a video of the attack with The Associated Press. In it, commandos are seen jumping into a stack of containers placed on the ship’s deck.
A crew member on the ship can be heard saying: “Don’t go out.” He then told his colleagues to go to the bridge as more commandos descended on the deck. One commando can be seen kneeling above the others to give them cover.
The video corresponds to known details about MSC Aries. The helicopter used also appears to be a Soviet-era Mil Mi-17, a type that both the Guards and Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have used in the past to carry out raids. commando raid on the ship.
The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations described the ship as being “seized” by “regional authorities” in the Gulf of Oman off the United Arab Emirates port city of Fujairah. without specifying details.
The MSC Aries was last located off the coast of Dubai towards the Strait of Hormuz on Friday. The ship had its tracking data turned off, which is common for Israeli-affiliated ships moving through the area.
Iran since 2019 has carried out a series of ship seizures and attacks attributed to it amid ongoing tensions with the West over the country’s rapidly growing nuclear program. This.
The Gulf of Oman lies near the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which one-fifth of all global oil trade passes. Fujairah, on the east coast of the United Arab Emirates, is the main port in the region for ships taking on new oil cargoes, receiving supplies or exchanging crew.
Since 2019, the waters off Fujairah have seen a series of explosions and robberies. The US Navy blamed Iran for Limbet mine attacks on ships that damaged oil tankers.
