Iran says it seizes ‘offending’ oil tanker, US disables two vessels

Tehran: The Iranian army said on Friday that its naval forces had seized an “offending” oil tanker named “Ocean Koi” that sought to disrupt the country’s oil exports by abusing the regional circumstances.

It said in a statement that the tanker was carrying Iran’s oil and sought to harm Iran’s national interests by designing a “special operation” in the Gulf of Oman.

The naval forces directed the tanker to Iran’s southern coasts and handed it over to Iran’s judicial authorities, it said.

In a separate statement, the army said its naval forces targeted US destroyers with cruise missiles, rockets and combat drones during the past hours in response to their attacks on Iranian oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz and in Iran’s territorial waters, Xinhua news agency reported.

It said the destroyers changed course and left the area.

Meanwhile, the US Central Command stated that US forces disabled M/T Sea Star III and M/T Sevda on May 8, prior to both vessels entering an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman in violation of the ongoing US blockade.

It added that a US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet from USS George H.W. Bush disabled both tankers after firing precision munitions into their smokestacks, preventing the non-compliant ships from entering Iran.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry on Friday strongly condemned the overnight US attacks, calling them a violation of an April 8 ceasefire between the warring parties.

Also on Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi slammed the US choice of a “reckless military adventure” when “a diplomatic solution is on the table” again.

Writing on social media platform X, Araghchi said Iranians “never bow to pressure” and that “diplomacy is always the victim.”

He also claimed that Iran’s missile inventory and launcher capacity now stand at 120 per cent, exceeding estimates provided by the US intelligence community.

Iran also claimed that the US attacked two Iranian vessels near the Strait of Hormuz and said the US conducted airstrikes on Iran’s southern cities and the capital, Tehran, in cooperation with some regional states.

Following the claims by Iran, Washington said that it has no intention of escalation and that the April 8 ceasefire still holds.

IANS