Originally posted to The Guardian website, 4 August 2021
Confirmation comes as British navy says armed group has left Panama-registered Asphalt Princess
Oman has confirmed that a tanker boarded off the coast of the United Arab Emirates by a group of armed men was the target of a “hijacking incident”.
The incident, involving eight or nine armed men, ended after the group left the ship on Wednesday morning, according to a statement from the British navy.
The identity of the hijackers remained unclear despite claims on Tuesday by some maritime security sources which pointed to Iranian backing, a claim denied by Iran.
The British military’s United Kingdom maritime trade operations (UKMTO) reported that the incident, which it had described as a “potential hijack” the night before, was now “complete”.
“The vessel is safe,” the group said, without identifying the ship.
The shipping authority Lloyd’s List and the maritime intelligence firm Dryad Global both named the hijacked vessel as the Panama-flagged asphalt tanker Asphalt Princess. The vessel’s owner, listed as the Emirati free-zone-based Glory International, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Satellite-tracking data for the Asphalt Princess had showed it gradually heading toward Iranian waters off the port of Jask early on Wednesday, according to MarineTraffic.com.
Later, however, it stopped and changed course toward Oman, just before the British naval group announced the intruders had left.
The event unfolded amid heightened tensions between Iran and the west over Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers and as commercial shipping in the region has found itself caught in the crosshairs.
Most recently, the US, UK and Israel have blamed Iran for a drone attack on an oil tanker off the coast of Oman that killed two people. Iran has denied involvement. A number of maritime security sources had suggested that Iranian-backed forces were suspected in an incident that remains clouded in uncertainty.
In a statement on Tuesday, the UK Foreign Office said it was “urgently investigating an incident on a vessel off the UAE coast”. A spokesperson for the US state department said it was “too early to offer a judgment” on the incident.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards denied that the country’s forces or allies were involved, saying the incident was a pretext for “hostile action” against Tehran, Iranian state television said on its website.
“According to information from security sources, Iran’s armed forces and all branches of the Islamic resistance in the Middle East have nothing to do with the incident in the Gulf of Oman,” the Guards said in a statement carried by the website.
The statement said the incident was an attempt by western countries and Israel “to prepare the public opinion of the international community for hostile action against the honourable nation of Iran”.
Iran’s foreign ministry said reports of security incidents involving several ships near the UAE coast on Tuesday were “suspicious” and warned against any effort to create a “false atmosphere” against Tehran.
“The reports on the occurrence of successive security incidents for ships in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman is completely suspicious,” a ministry website quoted the spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh as saying, adding: “Iran’s naval forces are ready for help and rescue in the region.”
First intimations of an incident emerged on Tuesday afternoon when a warning notice was issued by the UKMTO,which notified ships that “an incident is currently under way” – later upgraded to a “potential hijacking”.
An Oman Royal Air Force Airbus C-295MPA maritime patrol aircraft was flying over the area, according to data from Flightradar24.com.
The initial warning emerged amid contradictory claims in different local media that up to four ships had reported issues. Four oil tankers announced around the same time via their automatic identification system trackers that they were “not under command”, according to MarineTraffic.com.
It was not clear, however, of the significance of those alerts or even if they were related, with one of the ships later moving again.
The US military’s Middle East-based Fifth Fleet and the British defence ministry did not immediately return calls for comment. The Emirati government did not immediately acknowledge the incident.
The event comes just days after a drone struck an oil tanker linked to an Israeli billionaire off the coast of Oman, killing two crew members. On Monday, Iran said it would respond to any threat against its security after the US, Israel and Britain blamed Tehran for the attack, which marked the first known assault to have killed civilians in the years-long shadow war targeting commercial vessels in the region.
Iran denied any role in the incident, though Tehran and its allied militias have used similar “suicide” drones in attacks previously. Israel, the US and UK vowed a “collective response” to the attack, without elaborating.
The UKMTO warning notice, based on a third-party source, advised vessels to exercise extreme caution in the area, about 61 nautical miles east of Fujairah.
The UKMTO was set up by the Royal Navy in 2001 initially to coordinate and exchange information with merchant traffic in the Arabian Sea to help counter Somali piracy.
Link to the original post: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/aug/03/extreme-caution-urged-in-gulf-of-oman-after-non-piracy-incident
