The situation in the Gulf has deteriorated considerably in the last twenty four hours, with Iran and the United States targeting oil tankers and strategic sites and military targets. The Arab Gulf States continue to pay a heavy price. The conflict that started in February has now dragged out longer than their worst nightmare.
The United States has attacked five Iranian oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman and near Kharg Island after accusing Tehran of launching ballistic missiles at a US warship twice in two days.
Iran responded to Tuesday’s attacks by firing missiles at US forces stationed at the Al Azraq base in Jordan. It also claimed additional strikes on at least two US vessels and eight tankers in the region, saying the assaults caused “great damage”.
The exchange of fire comes amid escalating tensions in the Gulf six months into the US and Israel’s war on Iran, with Tehran closing the Strait of Hormuz and Washington enforcing a naval blockade on Iranian ports.
The hostilities drove oil prices to $99.49 a barrel in early trading on Wednesday.
In a statement late on Tuesday (8 September), the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had sought to target a US warship twice over the past two days, but that the vessel “successfully evaded the attempted Iranian attacks”.
“No American personnel were harmed,” it said.
CENTCOM said it responded by striking and destroying the Iranian oil carriers, M/T Kaviz, M/T Charminar, M/T Horizon 1, and M/T Riesco in the Gulf of Oman, as well as M/T Derya near Kharg Island.
“American forces directed the crews to abandon ship before the vessels were struck and rendered inoperable,” CENTCOM added.
It later published a video that it said showed the M/T Riesco sinking in the Gulf of Oman.
Iran’s IRIB state broadcaster confirmed the attack near Kharg Island, which handled some 90 percent of the country’s oil exports before the war. It reported that the crew was evacuated and said a second tanker was hit near the southern port of Jask in the Gulf of Oman.
It said it retaliated by subjecting Al Azraq base in Jordan to “fierce missile strikes” and claimed that hangars used by US fighter jets were destroyed in the attacks.
The IRGC went on to claim ballistic missile attacks on the US Navy DDG-119 and DDG-53 destroyers, saying the strikes caused “significant damage… to these vessels”.
In a subsequent statement, it said its naval forces targeted “2 American vessels and 8 tankers in the region, causing great damage to them”. It was not clear if the two “American vessels” were the same destroyers mentioned in the earlier statement.
There was no immediate comment from the US on the Iranian claims.
The ship attacks followed a statement by the IRGC that warned of imminent attacks on oil tankers in Bahrain and Kuwait’s borders. The IRGC said all crews must evacuate immediately.
Jordan’s Armed Forces, meanwhile, said the country’s air defences engaged 20 ballistic missiles, “successfully intercepting and destroying 18 of them”. Two missiles “fell in unpopulated areas”, it said in a statement.
The attacks did not cause any casualties, and specialised teams “have begun securing the locations where debris and shrapnel fell”, the military added.
Earlier, the chief of staff of Iran’s Armed Forces, Ali Abdollahi, had warned that Tehran would strike US military installations across the region if Iranian tankers were targeted.
The US had previously attacked three Iranian oil tankers on September 5, causing one of them to sink. Tehran said it responded on the same day by attacking three commercial ships and three US-linked ships.
Iran’s top security official, Mohsen Rezaei, later said that Tehran plans to announce a restricted zone outside the Strait of Hormuz, adding that “any ship entering this new zone will be placed on the sanctions list [of Iran]”.
Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday condemned the latest US attacks on Iranian commercial vessels as a violation of the United Nations charter, describing them as a “war crime”.
It said the “illegal and aggressive actions” were a continuation of the US’s military “aggression” and “economic war” against the country and warned that Washington and its partners bear full responsibility for the consequences.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the strikes, telling reporters during a visit to Colombia that Washington will not back down. “Iran continues to try to hit US naval ships, and for every time they do that or try to do that, they’re going to lose tankers,” he said,
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Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna, reporting from Washington, DC, said the attacks mark an “escalation” in the six-month-old conflict.
“The US is now finding different targets, new targets, in terms of response to Iranian attacks, or what the US administration says are Iranian attacks,” he said.
“Whether these tanker attacks are part of a formulated strategy or whether it is just a question of circumstance, that is not particularly clear at this point,” he said. “However, there is no doubt that these attacks on Iranian tankers would have an economic impact on Iran, and that does fit into what the US administration has declared is its present strategy, which is to bring economic strangulation to Iran.”
Also on Tuesday, the IRGC claimed the capture of an unmanned US submarine at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz “in a complex intelligence and operational action”.
But the US military said the underwater drone had “malfunctioned” as it was surveilling regional waters. It said the “defective drone” had not collected sensitive data nor carried any classified sonar or radar equipment.
source: commonspace.eu with Al Jazeera (Doha) and agencies
