Dubai – British maritime security firm Vanguard Tech said Tuesday that a US-flagged tanker was approached by Iranian gunboats, who threatened to board the ship in the Strait of Hormuz before continuing on its way under military escort. This incident has come to light amidst a tense standoff between the United States and Iran, just a few days before the expected talks.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps sent small armed boats to approach the Stena Imperative.
The Stena Imperative was approached by three pairs of small armed boats from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps while transiting the Strait of Hormuz about 16 nautical miles north of the coast of Oman, the company said.
The gunners hailed the tanker by radio and ordered the captain, “Stop engines and prepare to board,” but the ship increased speed and maintained course, with the firm insisting that it never entered Iranian territorial waters.
“The ship is now being protected by a US warship,” Vanguard Tech said.
The US-flagged tanker was still en route to its destination in Bahrain on Tuesday afternoon, due to arrive at the port of Sitrah on February 5, according to information from the MarineTraffic website.
The British maritime safety agency, UKMTO, had previously reported the incident without specifying the nationality of the ship or the boats that approached it, saying only that “it was greeted by several small armed vessels on VHF” but ignored requests to stop and “continued on its planned route.”
“Authorities are investigating,” the UKMTO said in its statement, warning all vessels in the Strait of Hormuz to “transit with caution and report any suspicious activity.”
The Strait of Hormuz is a vital route for the global transportation of oil and liquefied natural gas and has been the site of several incidents in the past amid tensions between Iran and the West.
Iran’s Fars news agency, which is closely linked to the Revolutionary Guards, on Tuesday, quoting unnamed government officials, denied a report by Vanguard Tech that claimed a ship was stopped after entering Iran’s territorial waters without permission.
MarineTraffic tracking data showed that the Imperative remained within Oman’s maritime economic zone as it transited the strait.
A senior Iranian official in the Revolutionary Guards threatened last week to block passage to the strait in the event of a US attack, and the Guards also held military exercises over the weekend on the strategic waterway.
President Trump has repeatedly threatened that he can launch a new military attack on Iran over its brutal repression of recent protests in the country or if it refuses to negotiate a new deal on its nuclear programme.
Speaking to CBS News last week, Mr Trump said, “I have had conversations” with Iran over the past few days, and “I plan to have more conversations.”
Mr Trump stated that during those conversations, he “told them two things. “No. 1, no nukes. And No. 2, stop killing protesters. The number of protesters being killed is in the thousands.
At least 10 US warships – including an aircraft carrier and at least five destroyers – were heading towards Iran’s coastal waters as of last week, a deployment Mr Trump has called an “armada” that he said he hoped he would not need to use.
Later this week, we expect talks between US and Iranian officials.
