Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Iran still holding seized oiler, U.S. says
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran seized a Vietnamese-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman last month and still holds the vessel, two U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday, revealing the latest provocation in Mideast waters as tensions escalate between Iran and the United States.
Iran’s powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard troops took control of the MV Southys, a vessel that analysts suspect of trying to transfer sanctioned Iranian crude oil to Asia, on Oct. 24 at gunpoint. U.S. forces had monitored the seizure, but ultimately didn’t take action as the vessel sailed into Iranian waters.
Iran celebrated its capture of the vessel in dramatic footage aired on state television, the day before the 42nd anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and state broadcasters offered a series of contradictory reports about a confrontation between the guard and the U.S. Navy’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet. State TV sought to cast the incident as an act of American aggression against Iran in the Gulf of Oman, with the U.S. Navy detaining a tanker carrying Iranian oil, and the Guard freeing it and bringing it back to the Islamic Republic.
Iranian officials heralded the ship’s impoundment as a heroic act, with President Ebrahim Raisi lauding the Revolutionary Guard on Twitter. The country’s oil minister, Javad Owji, thanked the guard for “rescuing the Iranian oil tanker from American pirates.”
The U.S. officials dismissed Iran’s version of events. Tehran also did not provide details of the ship’s name, nor any explanation of why the Navy might target it. Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did officials at the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington.