Attacks add fuel to US-Iran tensions
The top American envoy is quick to blame Tehran, while Iranian officials say there is something ‘suspicious’ about the incidents, writes Erin Cunningham
The perilous contest between the United States and Iran for influence in the Middle East escalated dramatically as two tankers were targeted in suspected attacks near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for global oil shipments.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Iran for the “blatant assault” on the vessels and said the United States would defend itself and its allies against Iranian aggression in the region. But he provided no evidence that the explosions had been the work of Iranian forces.
The blasts appeared to be a coordinated attack, damaging the hull of a Japanese-owned tanker and striking a Norwegian-owned vessel, which caught fire and was left adrift in the Gulf of Oman.
The incidents were similar to suspected acts of sabotage carried out against tankers near the United Arab Emirates port of Fujairah last month and looked to be the latest salvo in the mounting confrontation between the US and Iran. As the Trump Administration has tightened economic sanctions on Iran after withdrawing last year from the historic nuclear deal, Iran and its allies have been accused by some of responding with calibrated attacks in the Persian Gulf area, Iraq and Saudi Arabia aimed at underscoring the potential cost to US interests, including the international oil trade.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif described the incidents late on Thursday as “suspicious” and Iran’s naval forces said they were investigating the “accident” in the Gulf of Oman. At the United Nations, the Iranian mission denied any involvement and called the US claim “inflammatory” and “Iranophobic”.
The crews of both vessels were forced to abandon ship. A US defence official said the USS Bainbridge, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer that was in the area, took on board 21 crew members from the Japanese vessel, the Kokuka Courageous.
The blast on the Japanese ship appeared timed to undermine diplomatic efforts by Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, who was wrapping up a high-stakes visit to Tehran. He met with Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and was seeking to help mediate potential talks between US and Iranian officials. Abe had called his talks in Tehran “a major step forward toward securing peace and stability in this region”, the Kyodo news agency reported.
The second vessel, owned by Norway’s Frontline, was “suspected of being hit by a torpedo”, an official with Taiwan’s state oil refiner, CPC Corp, told the Reuters news agency. CPC Corp chartered the vessel.
The tanker, called the Front Altair, was carrying naphtha, a flammable petrochemical product that was loaded at a port in the UAE and was destined for East Asia, news agencies reported. The ship’s 23 crew members — 11 Russians, 11 Filipinos and one Georgian — were rescued by a nearby vessel and transferred to an Iranian navy ship, then taken to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.
Speaking to reporters, Pompeo said that the US assessment of Iranian involvement was based on intelligence, the type of weapons used and the level of expertise needed, and that no Iranian-backed militia in the region has the resources or proficiency to pull off such a sophisticated operation.
He said the impetus behind the attacks was the Administration’s “maximum pressure campaign” of sanctions that US officials say are designed to get Iran to negotiate over its nuclear programme and its support of militias in various neighbouring countries.
“Our policy remains an economic and diplomatic effort to bring Iran back to the negotiating table at the right time and encourage a comprehensive deal that addresses the broad range of threats,” Pompeo said. “Iran should meet diplomacy with diplomacy, not with terror, bloodshed and extortion.”
In New York, the US representative to the United Nations blamed Tehran for the blasts during a meeting of the Security Council, drawing a sharp response from the Iranian mission.
“Iran categorically rejects the US unfounded claim,” the mission said in a statement.
“The US economic war and terrorism against the Iranian people as well as its massive military presence in the region have been and continue to be the main sources of insecurity and instability in the wider Persian Gulf region and the most significant threat to its peace and security,” the statement continued.
“Neither fabrications and disinformation campaigns nor shamelessly blaming others can change the realities.
“The US and its regional allies must stop warmongering and put an end to mischievous plots as well as false flag operations in the region,” it said.
Shortly after Pompeo spoke in Washington, senior US officials showed photographs to reporters of the damaged tanker Courageous with what the US Navy identified as a suspected magnetic mine attached to its hull.
The unexploded weapon was probably applied by hand from an Iranian fast boat, one official said, and is thought to be the same kind of weapon used to blow a hole elsewhere in the same tanker and to do more-serious damage to the other ship, the Front Altair, two officials said.
The officials, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, said the type and timing of the attack bear Iranian hallmarks, but US officials could not yet say with certainty where the mines were manufactured or exactly how they were laid.
“There’s not too many ways in which this can be done,” one official said. “Very few that don’t involve an individual physically placing it on the ship.”
The US Central Command released a video and timeline that suggested US military assets observed Iranian vessels returning to the Courageous to retrieve the unexploded mine.
US officials said several nations were consulting about how to respond. One option might be to provide military escorts for commercial tankers moving through the Strait of Hormuz, one official said, although no decision had been made.
The US military has dispatched a P-8 Poseidon, an anti-ship, antisubmarine and surveillance aircraft, to the area in response to the incident, a defence official said.
US Central Command is sending additional troops and weaponry to the Middle East.
The Gulf of Oman links the Arabian Sea with the Strait of Hormuz, the gateway to the Persian Gulf. The gulf has been a flash point for tensions between Iran and the US and its Arab gulf allies.
“The tension in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf is now as high as it gets without being an actual armed conflict,” said Jakob Larsen, head of maritime security at the Baltic and International Maritime Council, the world’s largest international shipping association. “The increase in attacks and the escalated threat to seafarers is an urgent concern to the industry.”
US officials say the pressure campaign is aimed at isolating Tehran, curbing its support for regional proxies, restricting its ballistic missile programme, and ultimately bringing Tehran back to the negotiating table. But some experts say the recent tensions have underscored the limits of that policy.
“This is a way station to a wider conflict breaking out between Iran and the United States,” said Ali Vaez, senior Iran analyst and Iran project director for the International Crisis Group. “If Iran was behind it, it is very clear the maximum pressure policy of the Trump Administration is rendering Iran more aggressive, not less.”