A cargo ship travelling through the Strait of Hormuz on a new Oman UN-backed route was hit by a projectile on Thursday, sustaining bridge damage, but no casualties or environmental impact, the British military said.
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The yet to be identified ship was struck 7,5 nautical miles off the coast of Oman after Iran’s IRGC earlier in the day threatened vessels travelling through the strait without Tehran’s permission.
A video recorded on the bridge of a ship was posted on social media purporting to air an IRGC Navy radio broadcast warning that only vessels with Iranian permission were allowed to pass.
“Transit only with IRGC permission, on designated routes. No permission, AIS off, or off-route, and you carry the consequences,” the broadcast reportedly said.
It is unclear who was behind the reported strike on the vessel. The type of ship struck also remains undisclosed at this time.
The incident prompted the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to pause the evacuation of ships stranded in the Hormuz.
The head of the UN agency said the plan to move stranded ships out of the Persian Gulf through the strait will be on hold until the agency can confirm safety guarantees for the ships on the evacuation list and in the region.
Dozens of ships pass Hormuz prior to incident
Maritime data showed a surge in ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz before the attack, on a new route announced on Wednesday by Oman in coordination with the IMO.
According to the data, 70 crossings were recorded on the Oman route, while Iran threatened vessels using the path.
Oil tankers, led by the Stoic Warrior vessel, sailed along the United Arab Emirates and then Oman early Thursday, passing by Oman’s Musandam Peninsula fairly close to the shore.
North of the route is a corridor in the centre of the strait where ships had moved through freely before the war, transporting about a fifth of all the world’s oil and natural gas.
Although some ships had been leaving the strait with US military support, the UN agency’s effort is the latest attempt to free trapped vessels.
The shipping company Maersk said its container ship, the Maersk Baltimore, and another chartered vessel made it out on Thursday.
“Opportunistic operators — and there are many of them — emboldened by the lower transit risk, or at least the perceived lower transit risk, have begun chasing the backlog of trapped cargoes,” said Richard Meade, editor-in-chief at Lloyd’s List.
The naval arm of the Revolutionary Guard, apparently reacting to the new shipping route and increased traffic, issued a warning Thursday, carried by Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency.
It said the new route was established without notice or coordination with Iran, calling it “unacceptable and completely dangerous.”
“The only authorised route for passing through the Strait of Hormuz is the one declared by the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the Iranian force said. “Vessel traffic outside these routes is extremely dangerous and prohibited.”
“Violators will be dealt with,” it added, without elaborating.
IRGC and US military to be posted to Qatar
Meanwhile, US Vice President Vance said on Thursday that IRGC and US military representatives will be posted in Doha to settle disputes between the two sides, in an apparent move to open a direct channel of communication with Tehran’s elite military branch.
“The Iranians were like, ‘Fine, we’ll send somebody from the IRGC to go hang out in Doha with somebody from CENTCOM,’ and that’s how we’re going to settle a lot of these disputes,” Vance said.
The IRGC is believed to be the key power broker in Iran as Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei remains absent from the public after he reportedly sustained injuries in the initial US-Israeli strikes on Tehran that resulted in the death of his father, late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with foreign ministers from the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) earlier in the day to assure them that their interests would be protected in any agreement with Iran.
He told journalists that the US and Gulf allies would ensure no fees would be charged to ships moving through the strait, and that the US wanted to ensure the Oman route remained open for ships to transit the strait.
“If that stops, then we’re going to have a problem,” Rubio said.
Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani thanked the US for its support, saying that because of the agreement, “today we see a glimmer of hope for our region,” yet stressed that it was “critically important that Iran adheres to its obligations.”
