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Mojtaba Ghahramani, a provincial chief of the justice
department, said the oil tanker was carrying some 4 million
liters, 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
traveled 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 U.S. 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% of all
traded oil passes. The U.S. Navy has long patrolled the Mideast
through its Bahrain-based 5th Fleet to keep the waterways open.
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