Armed men on Tuesday boarded a Hong Kong-flagged tanker ship off the coast of Iran near the Strait of Hormuz, holding the ship for a short time before releasing it amid heightened tensions between Tehran and the US, authorities said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the seizure, although suspicion fell on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Iranian officials and state media did not immediately acknowledge the incident and the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, based on Bahrain off the coast of Saudi Arabia, did not respond to a request for comment.
The incident comes after private maritime intelligence firm Dryad Global warned of suspicious incidents over the past few days near the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of all oil is traded.
The incident happened near Iran’s Ras al-Kuh coast.
The vessel “had been boarded by armed men while at anchor,” the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations organization said in an alert. “All vessels in the vicinity are to stay vigilant and to report any incidents.”
The organization later said that the ship had been released and was underway under its captain’s control, without elaborating.
Dryad Global identified the ship as the Hong Kong-flagged SC Taipei bound for Saudi Arabia and said the 22 crew members were Chinese.
The SC Taipei’s satellite tracking beacon showed it off the coast of Iran in the general vicinity of the warning, data on the Web site MarineTraffic.com showed.
The ship’s owners could not be immediately reached, although a UN database lists a mail-forwarding address for the owners that is associated with Shanghai-based Aoxing Ship Management.
The US Department of State last month sanctioned Aoxing Ship Management for “knowingly engaging in a significant transaction for the purchase, acquisition, sale, transport or marketing of petrochemical products from Iran,” despite US sanctions.
The quick release of the ship suggests that Iran realized only after the fact that it had seized a Chinese vessel, rather than a Western one, as in previous incidents.
Iran has increasingly relied on China amid US sanctions over its nuclear program.
“At a time when China still buys Iranian oil and Iran has few international friends, such a move would be highly irregular and would not further Iran’s interests,” Dryad Global said.
Even as both face the same invisible enemy in the COVID-19 pandemic, Iran and the US remain locked in retaliatory pressure campaigns that view the outbreak as just the latest battleground.
Online video and Iranian media reports suggest that Iran has deployed Fajr-5 missile batteries on beaches along the Strait of Hormuz.
Dryad Global has previously reported maritime incidents in and around the Strait of Hormuz.
Two boats with a raised ladder on March 27 approached a US-flagged container ship, while Revolutionary Guard vessels approached a ship on April 2, the firm said.
“The detention of a vessel in the Strait of Hormuz would fit comfortably within previous Iranian intent and capability ... and would provide an opportune ‘opening salvo’ in an Iranian attempt to release the pressures the country currently faces,” Dryad Global said on Tuesday.
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