DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – An explosion hit an Israeli-owned cargo ship sailing from the Middle East on Friday, an unexplained explosion that renewed concerns about the security of ships in the region amid escalating tensions between the US and Iran.
The crew and the ship were safe, according to the UK’s maritime commercial operations, which are led by the British navy. The explosion in the Gulf of Oman forced the ship to head to the nearest port.
The incident recalled the summer of 2019, when the same site saw a series of suspected attacks that the US Navy blamed on Iran, which Tehran denied. Meanwhile, as US President Joe Biden tries to revive nuclear talks with Iran, he ordered overnight airstrikes on facilities in Syria belonging to a strong Iraqi-backed armed group.
Dryad Global, a maritime intelligence firm, identified the affected ship as the MV Helios Ray, a Bahamian-flagged rolling stock cargo ship. Another private security official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss information issues, similarly identified the ship as Helios Ray.
Satellite tracking data from MarineTraffic.com showed that Helios Ray had almost entered the Arabian Sea around 06:00 GMT on Friday, before it suddenly returned and started heading towards the Strait of Hormuz. He came from Dammam, Saudi Arabia, and still listed Singapore as a destination on the tracker.
Israel’s Channel 13, in a report without sources, said the assessment in Israel is that Iran was behind the explosion. Israeli officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The blast comes as Tehran increasingly violates the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers to leverage Washington. Iran is trying to pressure Biden to grant the exemption it received on the basis of an agreement that former President Donald Trump abandoned almost three years ago.
Iran has blamed Israel for a recent series of attacks, including a mysterious explosion last summer that destroyed an advanced centrifuge assembly plant at the Natanz nuclear plant and killed Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a top Iranian scientist who founded the Islamic Republic’s military nuclear program two decades ago.
Captain Ranjith Raja of the data firm Refinitiv told the AP that the Israeli-owned ship left the Persian Gulf on Thursday for Singapore. On Friday, at 02:30 GMT, the ship stopped at least 9 hours east of Oman’s main port, before making a 360-degree turn and sailing to Dubai, likely for damage assessment and repairs, he said. he.
The ship came loaded with cargo from Europe. It has unloaded vehicles in several ports in the region, Raja added, including in Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, with its last port of call at Dammam.
While details of the blast remained unclear, two U.S. defense officials told the AP that the ship sustained two holes on its port side and two holes on the starboard side just above the blast waterline. Officials said it was unclear what caused the holes. They spoke with the PA on condition of anonymity to discuss unpublished information about the incidents.
A United Nations ship database identified the ship’s owners as a Tel Aviv company called Ray Shipping Ltd. Calls to Ray Shipping went unanswered on Friday.
Abraham Ungar, 74, who goes by “Rami”, is the founder of Ray Shipping Ltd. and is known as one of the richest people in Israel. He made a fortune in shipping and construction.
According to the Nikola Y. Vaptsarov Naval Academy, where Ungar offers maritime support and training, he owns dozens of ships carrying cars and employs thousands of engineers.
The US Navy’s 5th Navy based in Bahrain said it was “aware and monitored” of the situation.
While the circumstances of the explosion remain unclear, Dryad Global said the blast was likely to stem from “asymmetric activity by the Iranian military.”
As Iran tries to pressure the US to lift sanctions, the country may seek to “exercise strong diplomacy through military means,” Dryad reported. Iran did not immediately acknowledge the incident.
In the tense summer of 2019, the US military blamed Iran for explosions on two oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most strategic sea routes in the world. The United States had also blamed Iran for a number of other suspected attacks, including the use of lame mines – designed to be magnetically attached to the ship’s hull – to paralyze four oil tankers near the UAE’s Fujairah port.
Since the assassination of Fakhrizadeh, Iran’s nuclear scientist, in November last year, Israeli officials have issued alarms about potential Iranian retaliation, including through its regional envoys, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
Over the years, Iran has been linked to attacks on Israeli and Jewish civilian targets in Latin America, Europe and Asia. Israel has not commented on its alleged role in killing the scientist.
Friday’s incident also follows normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. The agreements, met with fierce criticism from Iran, strengthened an emerging regional alliance against the Islamic Republic.
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Associated Press writers Laurie Kellman of Tel Aviv, Israel, Josef Federman of Jerusalem and Robert Burns of Washington contributed to this report.