DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – An Iranian ship suspected of being a base for the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and anchored in the Red Sea outside Yemen for years has been attacked, Tehran acknowledged on Wednesday.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry has confirmed the attack on MV Saviz, who was allegedly carried out by Israel – although Tehran did not immediately blame its regional arch-enemy. The assault came as Iran and world powers sat down in Vienna for the first talks on the US, which may have rejoined the shattered agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program, which shows that events outside the negotiations could derail these efforts.
The ship’s long-standing presence in the region, which has been repeatedly criticized by Saudi Arabia, came as Western and United Nations experts said Iran was providing weapons and support to Yemen’s Houthi rebels during the country’s long-running war. has. Iran denies arming the Houthis, although components found in the rebels’ weapons reconnect to Tehran.
Iran has earlier described the Saviz as an aid in ‘anti-piracy’ efforts in the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a major point in international shipping. Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh described the ship as a merchant vessel.
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“Fortunately, no casualties have been reported … and technical investigations are underway,” Khatibzadeh said. “Our country will take all necessary measures through international authorities.”
In an earlier state TV statement, an anchor quoted a report from the New York Times, in which an anonymous US official was quoted as saying to the newspaper that Israel told America that he had an attack on the vessel has done. Israeli officials declined to comment on the attack when The Associated Press reported it, as did the owner of Saviz.
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz described Iran and his allies as a major threat, while refusing to say whether his country would launch the attack.
“Israel must continue to defend itself,” Gantz told reporters. “Every place where we find an operational challenge and necessity will continue to act.”
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called the talks in Vienna a “success” as he spoke to his cabinet on Wednesday.
“Today, one united statement is heard that all sides of the nuclear deal have come to the conclusion that there is no better solution than the agreement,” he said.
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Iran’s semi-official news agency Tasnim, which is believed to be close to the guard, reported that a limp mine planted on Saviz’s hull caused the explosion. A limpet mine is a type of naval mine attached to the side of a ship, usually by a diver. It explodes later and can significantly damage a vessel. Iran did not blame anyone for the attack, saying Iranian officials were likely to provide more information in the coming days.
On October 1, 2020, the satellite photo of Planet Labs Inc. shows the Iranian cargo ship MV Saviz in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen. The Iranian cargo ship, which is believed to be a base for the paramilitary revolutionary guard anchored in the Red Sea outside Yemen for years, was attacked, Iranian state television acknowledged on Wednesday, Wednesday, April 7, 2021. (Planet Labs Inc. via AP)
In a statement, the U.S. military’s central command only said it was “aware of the media report of an incident involving the Saviz in the Red Sea.”
“We can confirm that no U.S. troops were involved in the incident,” the commando said. “We have no additional information to provide.”
The Saviz, owned by the state-affiliated Islamic Republic of Iran, arrived in the Red Sea at the end of 2016, according to ship tracking data. In the years that followed, it drifted away from the Dahlak archipelago, a chain of islands off the coast of the African nation of Eritrea. It probably received replenishments and switched the crew via passing Iranian vessels using the waterway.
Information material from the Saudi army obtained earlier by the AP showed that men on the vessel were dressed in military style, as well as small boats that could transport cargo to the Yemeni coast. This material also contains photographs showing a variety of antennas on the vessel that the Saudi government described as unusual for a commercial cargo ship, indicating that it was electronically supervised. Other images showed the ship was mounted for 50-caliber machine guns.
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The Washington Institute for Near-East Policy called the Saviz an “Iranian motherhood” in the region and also described it as an intelligence-gathering base and a weapon for the guard. Policy documents of the institute do not explain how they came to the conclusion, although the analysts have regular access to the military resources of the Gulf and Israel.
The Saviz was under international sanctions until Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which saw Tehran get relief from sanctions in exchange for limiting its uranium enrichment. The Trump administration later renewed US sanctions against Saviz as part of its decision to unilaterally withdraw from the deal.
In June 2019, Saudi Arabia flew a critically ill Iranian from the Saviz after Tehran asked the United Nations for help.
Amid growing tensions between the US and Iran, a series of mysterious explosions have targeted ships in the region, including some accusing the US Navy of Iran. Among the ships recently damaged was a car carrier owned by Israel in an attack that Netanyahu accused of Iran. Another was an Iranian cargo ship in the Mediterranean.
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Iran also blamed Israel for a recent series of attacks, including a mysterious explosion in July that destroyed an advanced centrifuge assembly plant at its nuclear facility in Natanz. Another is the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in November, a top Iranian scientist who founded the Islamic Republic’s military nuclear program two decades ago.