https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/s...hehr-f00b0qbw3
Sabotage fears after fire rips through Iranian port of Bushehr
A fire has damaged seven large cargo boats at the Iranian port city of Bushehr, the latest in a series of incidents which have aroused suspicions of widespread sabotage. Thick black smoke in the Delvar shipyard was visible for miles but was brought under control, the Iranian authorities said, and there were no casualties. It was the second significant blaze yesterday in southern Iran, with reports of another at a new aluminium smelting plant at Lamerd, also in the south.....
As debate continued in Iran over whether foreign saboteurs were responsible, Tehran appears to have engineered the escape of an oil tanker that had been held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for allegedly breaching US sanctions.
The
Gulf Sky, which is registered in Dominica but linked to an associate of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, was initially said to have been “hijacked”. The reappearance of the 900ft vessel in Iranian waters suggests a covert operation may have been carried out to remove the tanker from UAE custody. Most of the Indian crew of 28 have been repatriated, though two are said to still be in Iran because of problems with their passports.
The tanker had been held at the UAE port of Khor Fakkan for the last four months as part of a US investigation into Amir Dianat, 55, an Iranian, described as a long-time associate of the Quds Force, the powerful unit which engages in clandestine overseas operations. In May the US Justice Department charged Mr Dianat, and Kamran Lajmiri, 42, another Iranian, with purchasing the tanker, previously called
Nautic, through a series of front companies on behalf of the Quds Force.
The tanker, which had been issued with a “prohibition to sail order”, had disappeared and turned its automatic radar transponder off at 4.30am on July 5, but has now reappeared in Iranian waters off Hormuz Island, according to tankerstrackers.com, which had been asked to find the missing vessel.
The captain told a seafarers charity, human Rights at Sea, that the vessel had been hijacked...
The US Central Command confirmed to
The Times that there had been no “hijack” of the
Gulf Sky and that the tanker was being tracked by the 5th Fleet based in Bahrain.