Iran has rejected Israel’s accusations of being the masterminders of a deadly tanker attack off Oman describing it as ‘baseless’ even as tensions rise.
Iran has also vowed to defend its interests after its arch-foe pushed for UN action against Tehran.
Two crew members were killed, a British security guard and a Romanian crew member, in what the US military and the vessel’s operator Zodiac Maritime claimed appeared to be a drone strike.
On Friday, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said he had ordered the nation’s diplomats to push for UN action against ‘Iranian terrorism’, a claim which Iran has dismissed
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Africa Today News, New York gathered that on Saturday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to Lapid and agreed to work with other allies ‘to investigate the facts, provide support, and consider the appropriate next steps,’ according to a State Department statement.
Maritime industry analysts Dryad Global said the attack was the fifth against a ship connected to Israel since February.
The oil products tanker was travelling from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania to Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates with no cargo aboard when it was struck, Zodiac Maritime said.
Africa Today News, New York gathered that in March, Iran’s foreign ministry said it was ‘considering all options’ in response to an attack on a cargo ship in the Mediterranean it blamed on Israel.
And in April, Tehran said its freighter Saviz was hit by an “explosion” in the Red Sea, after media reports said Israel had struck the ship.
The New York Times reported at the time that the Saviz had been targeted in an Israeli ‘retaliatory’ attack after ‘Iran’s earlier strikes on Israeli ships’.
It came at a time of heightened tensions between the foes, with reports of a series of tit-for-tat attacks on shipping since early March.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK