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Two Sailors Missing After Tanker Attack in Strait of Hormuz

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Oman says two crew are missing and 23 rescued from the tanker El Gaia. Iran blames mines; the US says a missile and drone struck the vessel.

Two crew members are missing and 23 have been pulled to safety after an oil tanker was attacked in the Strait of Hormuz, according to Oman. The Panama-flagged vessel, El Gaia, was under tow toward an Omani port on Tuesday after fire tore through its engine room, Oman's Maritime Security Centre said.

The centre reported that the ship was hit 1.3 nautical miles (2.4km) north of the Musandam peninsula. Accounts of what caused the blaze diverge sharply. On Monday, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said the tanker had struck naval mines and caught fire while crossing what they called an off-limits and dangerous stretch of water.

The US military rejected that version. It said El Gaia had been hit by an Iranian missile last month and then by a drone over the weekend, and dismissed the Iranian account as untrue. The UK Maritime Trade Operations centre added another detail, saying it had been told a fire broke out aboard a vessel that was hit by an unidentified projectile as it moved through the strait in the early hours of Sunday.

The episode closely mirrors an incident earlier this month. Iran made a comparable claim about the Sidr, a Saudi-owned supertanker on which two Filipino sailors died. The Revolutionary Guards again pointed to a naval mine as the cause of the fire. Saudi authorities said Iran had deliberately targeted the ship, and maritime security companies reported that it was struck by projectiles north of Musandam, the same area cited in the latest attack.

The toll on merchant crews has been climbing. The International Maritime Organization says at least 22 seafarers have died across 79 verified incidents in the Strait of Hormuz and the wider Middle East since fighting between Iran and the US and Israel began at the end of February.

Fishing boats and a stolen sea drone

Separate incidents were reported across the waterway on Tuesday. Iran's semi-official Fars news agency, which has ties to the Revolutionary Guards, said "enemy drones" struck two fishing boats overnight close to the Iranian port of Kargan, roughly 80km (50 miles) north-east of Musandam. Fars quoted the deputy governor of Hormozgan province as saying several fishermen were unaccounted for and that a search-and-rescue effort had begun.

Hours later, a spokesman for the US military's Central Command told the news site Axios that American forces had sunk two boats attempting to seize a sea drone. "Iranian small boats recently attempted to take possession of a US unmanned surface vessel, but they were unsuccessful after Centcom forcefully responded," Capt Tim Hawkins said.

A waterway all but shut

The Strait of Hormuz normally carries about a fifth of the world's shipped oil and gas. It has now effectively ground to a halt, choked off by Iranian missile and drone strikes on commercial ships and by a US naval blockade of Iranian ports.

A brief attempt to defuse the crisis fell apart. In June, Washington and Tehran struck a preliminary deal to wind down the war and reopen the channel, but it unravelled within weeks once Iranian strikes on shipping started again and the US brought its blockade back into force.

Iran has said it will not surrender all control of the strait. It has focused its attacks on ships taking a southern path through Omani waters, a route that steers clear of the Iranian side of the waterway that Tehran prefers vessels to use.

Strait of Hormuz, El Gaia tanker, Oman Maritime Security Centre, Iran Revolutionary Guards, Musandam peninsula, oil shipping attacks, US Centcom, Iran US war

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