Blasts on U.S. tankers stoke fear of escalation
Pompeo blames Iran for ‘unprovoked attacks’ amid video evidence
LONDON — Explosions crippled two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday in what the United States called “unprovoked attacks” by Iran, raising alarms about immediate security and potential military conflict in a vital passageway for a third of the world’s petroleum.
Iran called the accusations part of a campaign of American disinformation and “warmongering.”
The explosions forced the crews of both vessels to evacuate and left at least one ablaze, and hours later the causes were still under investigation. Yet the backdrop of steeply rising threats between President Donald Trump and Iranian leaders gave the stricken ships a grave significance even before the facts became clear.
By afternoon, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that U.S. intelligence agencies had concluded Tehran was behind the disabling of both ships. Without providing specific evidence, he pointed to the weapons used, the expertise and resources required and the similarity to other recent attacks attributed to Iran.
“Taken as a whole, these unprovoked attacks present a clear threat to international peace and security,” he told a news conference in Washing
ton.
Senior American officials had already blamed Iran for similar attacks last month against four tankers on the same waterway. Iranian officials, who denied any involvement in those attacks, also rejected assertions they were behind the events Thursday and said Iran had been framed.
“Suspicious doesn’t begin to describe what likely transpired this morning,” Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, wrote on Twitter. Pompeo, firing back at his news conference, said Zarif “may think this is funny, but no one else in the world does.”
The most compelling evidence to support Pompeo’s claim is fullmotion video footage taken by a 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 after the secretary’s statement.
The patrol boat, with a crew of about a dozen aboard, 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.
On Thursday night, U.S. 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.
The Kokuka Courageous was about 20 miles off the Iranian coast when it transmitted an emergency call for help after an initial explosion. When the crew surveyed the damage from the first explosion, they saw a second unexploded mine attached to the hull and evacuated the ship, according to the American official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive intelligence matter.
The confrontation also played out at the United Nations in a meeting of the Security Council, where the acting U.S. ambassador, Jonathan Cohen, told other members that Iran was behind the attacks. Iran’s U.N. mission issued a statement afterward denouncing the “inflammatory remarks” by the American representative, calling them part of “another Iranophobic campaign” of disinformation.
“The U.S. and its regional allies must stop warmongering and put an end to mischievous plots as well as false flag operations in the region,” the Iranian statement said.
Earlier Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres expressed “deep concern” that the new episode might lead to a military escalation.
Besides its importance as a petroleum highway, the Persian Gulf also divides bitter and heavily armed rivals, with Iran on one side and the U.S.-backed Arab monarchies of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on the other.
Anxieties over the shared dependence on the vulnerable Persian Gulf shipping lanes have always been central to their animosities, and a commitment to guaranteeing the flow of oil through the same channels is behind the substantial U.S. military presence in the region.
Iranian officials Thursday suggested the new attacks might be the product of an elaborate conspiracy by their enemies, seemingly pointing to U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates or Israel, which have long urged Washington to take a more muscular approach to Iran.
But many analysts said there was a growing consensus in the West that Iran had been behind last month’s attacks, which took place near the port of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. And they argued that Iran appeared to be seeking to demonstrate it could imperil the world’s oil markets, but without leaving the kind of fingerprints that could trigger U.S. military retaliation.
“As long as there is significant ambiguity the attacks won’t produce a casus belli,” or cause for war, said Jack Watling, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute in London. “But Iran is demonstrating its capabilities. It is saying, ‘We can impose a cost on our adversaries in this confrontation, and it will be high.’”
Crude oil prices rose more than 3 percent in response to the crippling of the two ships Thursday, indirectly boosting Iran’s revenue as an oil producer.
The escalation came against the backdrop of a visit to Iran by the prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, who was hoping to de-escalate tensions between Tehran and Washington and avert any “accidental clashes.”
Abe was carrying a note from Trump to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, who rebuffed the overture. “I do not see Trump as worthy of any message exchange, and I do not have any reply for him, now or in future,” Khamenei said Thursday after meeting with Abe, according to the ayatollah’s website.
The animosity between Washington and Tehran began rising a year ago after Trump withdrew the United States from a 2015 deal with international powers that limited Iran’s nuclear activity in exchange for eased economic sanctions on the country of 80 million people.
Then, laying out sweeping demands for Iran to alter its policies toward the region, Trump in April ratcheted up the pressure by imposing severe sanctions aimed at cutting off Iran’s exports of oil, the lifeblood of the now-struggling Iranian economy. He also designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, a part of the military, as a terrorist group.
In May, citing unspecified warnings of imminent Iranian attacks on U.S. allies or interests, the Trump administration announced it was dispatching an aircraft carrier group to the Persian Gulf as a deterrent.
“If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran,” Trump said on Twitter last month. “Never threaten the United States again!”
Iranian leaders, in response, have threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, a potential Persian Gulf chokepoint. After complying with the nuclear pact for a year even after the U.S. withdrawal, Iran has also raised the possibility of breaching the accord by taking initial steps to expand its supply of enriched uranium.
Some Iranian allies around the region have stepped up their attacks on allies of Washington, fueling fears of a wider conflict. The Houthi faction in Yemen, which is backed by Iran, has launched attacks on Saudi oil pipelines and other targets, and this week a Houthi missile hit the arrivals hall of a Saudi airport, injuring 26 people, according to Saudi news reports.
The attacks in May on the four tankers near Fujairah were relatively minor, causing only limited damage to the hulls. An international investigation later concluded that the damage was done by divers deployed from small “fast boats” who had placed limpet mines against the hulls.
On a visit to the United Arab Emirates about two weeks ago, John R. Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser, said Iran was “almost certainly” responsible.