Iran's IRGC seizes two tankers in Gulf over alleged oil smuggling
What appeared to be a routine policing action followed two run-ins with the US Navy earlier this week, amid a massive buildup of US naval and air forces around Iran.
WASHINGTON — Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Thursday said its forces seized two tankers carrying more than a million liters of smuggled oil.
Iran’s Tasnim News Agency reported that 15 foreign crew members were detained and referred for criminal prosecution.
The nationalities of the crew members were not immediately clear. Iranian naval forces have regularly intercepted vessels smuggling oil in the Gulf in recent years.
The policing activity has generally not drawn the attention of US naval forces in the region, which began providing limited escorts to protect US- and internationally flagged commercial tankers in the broader region’s waterways during the Biden administration.
Earlier this week, a US-flagged tanker affiliated with the US Navy was approached by two IRGC fast boats and an Iranian Mohajer drone in the Strait of Hormuz. The vessel, the M/V Stena Imperative, refused radioed orders to stop and continued toward its destination in Bahrain.
A nearby US Navy guided-missile destroyer, the USS McFaul, and US Air Force assets responded to the Imperative’s distress call and escorted the ship from the strait, US military officials said Tuesday.
Further out in the Arabian Sea, on Tuesday morning, a US F-35C fighter pilot shot down an Iranian Shahed-139 drone that a US military official said had “aggressively approached” the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln “with unclear intent.”
Iran’s Tasnim News Agency acknowledged the loss of the drone.
The incidents at sea come ahead of planned talks between US and Iranian officials in Oman over restricting Tehran’s nuclear enrichment program, amid a considerable buildup of US naval and air power around Iran.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday the run-ins with the IRGC at sea had not derailed Washington’s intent to attend the upcoming talks.
