Iran seizes oil tanker in Strait of Hormuz

Iran seized a foreign oil tanker as it travelled the strategic Strait of Hormuz, State media said on Friday. Mojtaba Ghahramani, a provincial chief of the justice department, said the oil tanker was carrying some 4 million litres, or 25,000 barrels, of smuggled fuel when the Revolutionary Guard naval forces seized the vessel, the official IRNA news agency reported. Ghahramani said the forces also detained 16 foreign crew members of the tanker, adding that the seizure was a remarkable “blow” to smugglers. He did not disclose the nationality of the crew or the flag of the tanker. Iran occasionally seizes oil-carrying vessels over similar charges in the region.

In November, Iran seized a ship as it travelled through the narrow Strait of Hormuz over what it said were violations, including carrying an illegal consignment. The West has blamed Iran for a series of limpet mine attacks on vessels that damaged tankers in 2019, as well as for a drone attack on an Israeli-linked oil tanker that killed two European crew members in 2021. Those attacks began after US President Donald Trump, in his first term in office, unilaterally withdrew from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Iran also seized the Portuguese-flagged cargo ship MSC Aries in April 2024.

Following years of tensions between Iran and the West, coupled with the situation in the Gaza Strip, Iran saw a full-scale 12-day war in June with Israel, whose strikes led to the deaths of senior military commanders and nuclear scientists. Iran’s retaliatory missile barrage killed 28 in Israel. Tehran has long threatened to close off the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20 per cent of all traded oil passes. The US Navy has long patrolled the Mideast through its Bahrain-based 5th Fleet to keep the waterways open.