Iran claims 'missiles' might have been used in cargo ship strike as official blames Israel
14 March, 2021
Israel is highly likely to have already been behind an attack in the Mediterranean this week that damaged a great Iranian container ship, a great Iranian investigator claimed on Saturday, Iran's media reported.
The Shahr e Kord vessel was hit by an explosive object which caused a small fire, but nobody on board was hurt, Iran said on Friday. Two maritime reliability sources said preliminary indications advised the ship was intentionally targeted by an unidentified source.
The latest attack follows a campaign of Iranian sabotage procedures in the Arabian Gulf, often using limpet mines to focus on commercial shipping and oil tankers.
Last week, the Wall structure Street Journal quoted unnamed security officials who claimed that Israel had launched its plan against Iranian vessels in retaliation.
"Considering the geographical area and what sort of ship was targeted, among the strong alternatives is that terrorist operation was completed by the Zionist regime," he said, utilizing a derogatory reference to Israel. An unnamed person in the Iranian workforce investigating the incident was quoted as declaring by semi-official Nournews.
Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz declined to comment directly about the incident when addressing a webinar over Saturday hosted by his Blue and White party, but he said Iran regularly sent weapons to its proxies in your community.
"We foil arms materials and other things associated with operational development and armed service functions by air, sea and territory," Mr Gantz explained. "And by this I am certainly not saying whether we does or did not do that or that."
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said reports confirmed an act of sabotage in violation of overseas law, state media said. "Measures to recognize the perpetrators of this sabotage action will be on the agenda," he said.
The Iranian investigator said explosive projectiles could have been fired from an aerial vehicle, hitting containers on the ship's deck.
Iran's state-run shipping provider IRISL said it could take legal actions to recognize the perpetrators of the strike, which it called terrorism and naval piracy.
The incident came fourteen days after an Israeli-owned ship the MV HELIOS RAY was hit by an explosion in the Gulf of Oman.
The cause had not been immediately clear, although a US defence official said the blast kept holes in both sides of the vessel's hull. Israel accused Iran to be behind the explosion, a demand the Islamic Republic denied.
Source: www.thenationalnews.com