Blasts hit ships; U.S. blames Iran
Crews of 2 oil vessels rescued; Pompeo sees Tehran’s hand
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Iran for a “blatant assault” on two ships in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday and said the United States would defend itself and its allies against Iran’s actions in the region.
Speaking to reporters for four minutes and taking no questions, Pompeo said the assessment of Iran’s involvement in the explosions aboard two oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz is based on intelligence, the type of weapons used and the level of expertise needed, and that no other Iranian-backed militia in the region has the resources or proficiency to pull off such a sophisticated operation.
Pompeo said the impetus behind the attacks was the administration’s “maximum-pressure campaign” of sanctions that U.S. officials say are designed to get Iran to negotiate over its nuclear program and support of militias in neighboring 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,” he said.
After a private session of the Security Council, Jonathan Cohen, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters he expected more conversations in coming days on how to respond to the incident.
“The United States will continue its diplomatic and economic efforts to bring Iran to the negotiating table,” he said.
On Thursday night, U.S. Central Command released full-motion video footage taken by a U.S. Navy P-8 surveillance plane of an Iranian Revolutionary Guard patrol boat pulling up alongside the Kokuka Courageous, one of the stricken ships, a few hours after the initial explosion, and removing what American analysts believe was a limpet mine, two U.S. officials said.
The patrol boat, with a crew of about a dozen, removed the mine in broad daylight and zoomed away, blending in with other Revolutionary Guard boats in the area, according to the account by the American officials of what the video showed.
Central Command issued a statement in which it said a Revolutionary Guard patrol boat had been “observed and recorded removing the unexploded mine” from the Kokuka Courageous.
Before the video footage was released, Iran’s U.N. mission said the government “categorically rejects” the U.S. claim that it was responsible for the incidents against oil tankers which it condemns “in the strongest possible terms.”
It warned of “U.S. coercion, intimidation and malign behavior” and expressed concern “over suspicious incidents” involving the two tankers.
The mission also called on the international community to prevent “the reckless and dangerous policies and practices of the U.S. and its regional allies in heightening the tensions in the region.”
One year after President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated with Iran by his predecessor, tensions between the United States and Iran have escalated sharply.
In May, the U.S. rushed an aircraft carrier strike group and other military assets to the region in response to what it said were threats from Iran.
Pompeo listed some of the recent incidents against the United States and its allies, part of what he characterized as “40 years of unprovoked aggression against freedom-loving nations.”
Among them were attacks on four ships in the Persian Gulf last month, the deployment of small dhows capable of launching missiles, a missile strike on an international airport in Saudi Arabia, and a car bomb in Afghanistan that wounded U.S. service members and killed four civilians.
“Taken as a whole, these unprovoked attacks present a clear threat to international peace and security, a blatant assault on the freedom of navigation and an unacceptable campaign of escalating tension by Iran,” he said.
JAPAN’S ABE VISITING
The blasts appeared to be a coordinated attack, damaging the hull of a Japanese-owned tanker and striking another Norwegian-owned vessel, which caught fire and was left adrift in the Gulf of Oman.
The crews of both vessels were forced to abandon ship. A U.S. defense officials said the USS Bainbridge, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer that was in the area, took on board 21 crew members from the Kokuka Courageous, a Japanese vessel.
The attack on the Japanese ship appeared timed to undermine diplomatic efforts by Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, who was wrapping up a visit to Tehran. He met there with the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and was seeking to help mediate potential talks between U.S. 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., which chartered the vessel, told the Reuters news agency.
The tanker, called the Front Altair, was carrying naphtha, a flammable petrochemical product that was loaded at a port in the United Arab Emirates and 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.
“Iran’s supreme leader rejected Prime Minister Abe’s diplomacy today by saying he has no response to President Trump and will not answer,” Pompeo said. He called the attack on the Japanese tanker an insult on Japan itself.
He quoted Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s “sardonic” response to the tanker attacks: “Suspicious doesn’t begin to describe what likely transpired this morning.”
“Foreign Minister Zarif may think this is funny,” Pompeo said. “But no one else in the world does. Iran is lashing out because the regime wants our successful maximum-pressure campaign lifted. No economic sanctions tell the Islamic Republic to attack innocent civilians, disrupt global oil markets and engage in nuclear blackmail. The international community condemns Iran’s assault on the freedom of navigation and the targeting of innocent civilians.”
Shortly after Pompeo spoke, senior U.S. officials showed photographs to reporters of the damaged Japanese tanker with what the Navy identified as a suspected magnetic mine stuck 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 condition of anonymity because many elements of the investigation remain secret, said the type and timing of the attack bear Iranian hallmarks, but U.S. officials cannot yet say for sure 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.”
ALLIES CAUTIOUS
Officials of other countries have been more cautious about publicly assigning blame. The United Arab Emirates described the explosions as state-sponsored, but did not specify a state.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, both U.S. allies, have long been at odds with Iran, and they are backing opposing sides in the civil war in Yemen. But the sharpest recent changes have been in the U.S.-Iran relationship.
Trump has repudiated the 2015 deal limiting Iran’s nuclear program, and he recently moved to cut off Iran’s remaining oil exports and sent additional military forces to the region. In response, Iran recently threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial access to the Persian Gulf, and has said it may reduce its compliance with parts of the nuclear pact.
The Houthi faction in Yemen, backed by Iran, recently has attacked targets in Saudi Arabia, including oil pipelines, fueling fears of a wider conflict.
Much of the world’s oil and gas come from the Persian Gulf area, bordered by energy powerhouses like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Bahrain. Some of it leaves the region through pipelines, but a significant portion is carried by ships that must pass through the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman. Oil prices rose more than 3% on world markets in the hours after the explosions Thursday.
“We have people of every nationality and vessels of every flag transiting that crucial sea lane every day,” Paolo d’Amico, the chairman of the International Association of Independent Tanker Owners, said in a statement. “We need to remember that some 30% of the world’s crude oil passes through the Straits. If the waters are becoming unsafe, the supply to the entire Western world could be at risk.”
Information for this article was contributed by Carol Morello, Erin Cunningham, Anne Gearan, Simon Denyer and Akiko Kashiwagi of The Washington Post; by Richard Perez-Pena, Stanley Reed and David D. Kirkpatrick of The New York Times; and by Jon Gambrell, Aya Batrawy, David Rising, Mari Yamaguchi, Lolita C. Baldor, Zeke Miller, Susannah George and Amir Vahdat of The Associated Press.