Officials tell AP that Iran seized Vietnamese oil tanker

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran seized a Vietnamese-flagged lipid tanker successful the Gulf of Oman past period and inactive holds the vessel, 2 U.S. officials told The Associated Press connected Wednesday, revealing the latest provocation successful Mideast waters arsenic tensions escalate betwixt Iran and the United States implicit Tehran’s atomic program.

One of the officials said that Iran’s almighty paramilitary Revolutionary Guard troops took power of the MV Southys connected Oct. 24 astatine gunpoint. U.S. forces had monitored the seizure, but yet didn’t instrumentality enactment arsenic the vas sailed into Iranian waters.

A motive for the seizure remains unclear. Officials astatine the Vietnamese Embassy successful Washington did not instantly respond to a petition for comment. Ship-tracking information analyzed by the AP from MarineTraffic.com showed the vas inactive disconnected Iran’s confederate larboard of Bandar Abbas connected Tuesday.

The 2 U.S. officials spoke connected information of anonymity arsenic the accusation had yet to beryllium made nationalist amid ongoing attempts to restart talks implicit Iran’s tattered 2015 atomic woody with satellite powers. Negotiations person stalled successful Vienna since the predetermination of hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi successful June, allowing Iran to property up with its atomic programme and raising alarm successful Western capitals. Iran’s apical atomic negotiator said past week that talks would resume successful November, but didn’t supply a circumstantial date.

The officials spoke to AP aft Iranian authorities tv offered a bid of contradictory reports astir a confrontation betwixt the Guard and the U.S. Navy’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet. State TV sought to formed the incidental arsenic an enactment of American aggression against Iran successful the Gulf of Oman, with the U.S. Navy detaining a tanker carrying Iranian lipid and the Guard freeing it and bringing it backmost to the Islamic Republic.

The U.S. officials dismissed Iran’s mentation of events. Tehran besides did not supply details of the ship’s name, nor immoderate mentation of wherefore the Navy mightiness people it. Iran’s ngo to the United Nations did not instantly respond to a petition for comment.

The deluge of Iranian claims came arsenic the Islamic Republic prepared to people the 42nd day of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy successful Tehran, which triggered the 444-day hostage situation and bred decades of acrimony.

Iranian officials heralded the ship’s impoundment arsenic a heroic act, with Raisi lauding the Revolutionary Guard connected Twitter. The country’s lipid minister, Javad Owji, thanked the Guard for “rescuing the Iranian lipid tanker from American pirates.”

State TV released footage showing an Iranian surveillance drone monitoring a hulking reddish tanker successful the Gulf of Oman. Heavily equipped Iranian commandos past rappelled onto the vessel from a chopper arsenic tiny speedboats surrounded the vas and an Iranian catamaran vessel patrolled the waters.

The presumption and constitution of the Sothys’ unit wasn’t instantly known. A shipping database showed the vessel’s past registered proprietor arsenic OPEC Petrol Transportation Co., a steadfast with a Hanoi address. A telephone fig for the institution could not instantly beryllium found.

Iran’s seizure of the Southys would beryllium the latest successful a drawstring of hijackings and explosions to roil the Gulf of Oman, which sits adjacent the Strait of Hormuz, the constrictive rima of the Persian Gulf done which a 5th of each traded lipid passes.

The U.S. Navy blamed Iran for a bid of limpet excavation attacks connected vessels that damaged tankers successful 2019, arsenic good arsenic for a fatal drone onslaught connected an Israeli-linked lipid tanker that killed 2 European unit members earlier this year. Just a fewer months ago, Iranian hijackers stormed and concisely captured a Panama-flagged asphalt tanker disconnected the United Arab Emirates.

Tehran denies carrying retired the attacks, but a wider shadiness warfare betwixt Iran and the West has played retired successful the region’s volatile waters since then-President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from Iran’s atomic woody successful 2018 and imposed crushing sanctions connected the country.

Associated Press writers Isabel DeBre successful Dubai and Amir Vahdat successful Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.