Iran seized a foreign oil tanker on Wednesday, the second time it has used a form of state piracy to waylay a tanker in recent weeks.
US Naval Forces from Central Command said that “On May 3 at approximately 6:20 a.m. local time, Panama-flagged oil tanker Niovi was seized by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) while transiting the Strait of Hormuz.”
Iran is increasing its threats to shipping and also seeking to harass US naval forces in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman.
Tasnim News says that the IRGC’s “Navy seized a foreign oil tanker in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz.” The IRGC says it impounded the ship. Iran says “the Fifth Fleet of the US Navy has also claimed that this Panamanian-flagged oil tanker was traveling towards the Al-Fujairah in the UAE.” TankerTrackers.com, which monitors marine issues like this, noted that “we have now identified the port which Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) used in order to conduct their redirection of the empty VLCC supertanker NIOVI (9292498). They came from the tiny port of Qeshm. The speedboats raced back afterwards at the same speed.”
Iran's increasing threats to the US
Iran’s pro-regime media has been increasing its threats to the US via news articles. Tasnim recently claimed that the Persian Gulf is not a place for the US. Iran has made similar comments about Iraq. Iran’s President was also in Syria where he praised the Assad regime for its “resistance.” Iran recently re-opened its embassy in Saudi Arabia and Iran has been saying it is increasing cyber threats to Israel.
This is part of a wider pattern. Iran senses it has won in Syria, Yemen and Iraq and Lebanon and it wants to now harass the US in the Gulf and kidnap ships. Over the last several years Iran has done this with ships from numerous countries. It has also mined ships and used drones to attack ships and carried out other types of attacks. The overall number of ships captured and held for ransom and attacks is more than 20 in four years.
On May 1 the Iranian state media broadcast a clip on Twitter showing threats to US ships. “Humiliation of American sailors by IRGC forces. The IRGC's sailors force the American sailors to speak Farsi instead of English in the Persian Gulf and also immediately move away from the sea borders of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the Iranians said. They used channel 16 to warn a US ship and ordered it to also speak to them on a different VHF maritime radio channel.
The last ship Iran captured in recent weeks was the Advantage Sweet, on its way from Kuwait to Houston. Iran used a helicopter to send naval forces to capture it and re-route it. At the time
Iran's navy seized the Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman in late May.
Claire Jungman of UANI noted that “we have located the tanker NIOVI in the anchorage north of Larak Island, #Iran. ADVANTAGE SWEET remains in the Bandar Abbas anchorage northeast of where NIOVI can be found.” This may be the beginning of a new Iranian naval campaign to increase pressure on the US and shipping.