Iran seizes tanker in Strait of Hormuz, US official says, as tensions remain high in region

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran seized a Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker as it traveled through the narrow Strait of Hormuz on Friday, a U.S. official said, turning the ship into Iranian territorial waters in the first-such interdiction in months in the strategic waterway.

Iran did not immediately acknowledge the seizure, though it comes as Tehran has been increasingly warning it can strike back after facing a 12-day war in June with Israel that saw the U.S. strike Iranian nuclear sites.

The ship, the Talara, had been traveling from Ajman, United Arab Emirates, onward to Singapore when Iranian forces intercepted it, said the U.S. defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters. A U.S. Navy MQ-4C Triton drone had been circling above the area where the Talara was for hours on Friday observing the seizure, flight-tracking data analyzed by The Associated Press showed.

A private security firm, Ambrey, described the assault as involving three small boats approaching the Talara.

The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center separately acknowledged the incident, saying a possible “state activity” forced the Talara to turn into Iranian territorial waters. Cyprus-based Columbia Shipmanagement later said in a statement that it had “lost contact” with the tanker, which was carrying high sulphur gasoil.

The company has “notified the relevant authorities and is working closely with all relevant parties — including maritime security agencies and the vessel owner — to restore contact with the vessel,” the firm said. “The safety of the crew remains our foremost priority.”

The Navy has blamed Iran for a series of limpet mine attacks on vessels that damaged tankers in 2019, as well as for a fatal 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. The last major seizure came when Iran took two Greek tankers in May 2022 and held them until November of that year.

Those attacks found themselves subsumed by the Iranian-backed Houthis assaults targeting ships during the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, which drastically reduced shipping in the crucial Red Sea corridor.

The years of tensions between Iran and the West, coupled with the situation in the Gaza Strip, exploded into a full-scale 12-day war in June.

Iran long has threatened to close off the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of all oil traded passes. The U.S. Navy has long patrolled the Mideast through its Bahrain-based 5th Fleet to keep the waterways open.