Israeli strikes target Iranian oil link for Syria

According to US officials, some of the naval attacks are also on Iranian efforts to move other cargo, including weapons, through the region.

The attacks on tankers transporting Iranian oil have not been announced before. Iranian officials reported earlier on the attacks, saying they suspected Israeli involvement.

Israel has not previously commented on such incidents, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has referred questions to the Israeli military, which declined to comment on any Israeli role in the attacks on Iranian ships. Iranian officials at the United Nations mission did not respond to a request for comment.

Damascus said disruption of Iranian oil imports caused a shortage of Syrians. Syria and Iran have denied funding terrorism, saying their alliance is aimed at combating such crime.

The announcement of the Israeli campaign at sea indicates a new dimension in its campaign to counter the military and economic entrenchment of Iran and the support of related groups in the region. Since 2018, Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes, mostly in Syria, to send Iranian-backed groups, weapons and influence across the region.

The revelation also comes amid growing tensions in the region and as Biden’s government considers its approach to confronting Iran. The administration has said it wants to return to the 2015 international agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, but has stalled on demands from each side for concessions by the other.

Iran’s oil – bound Syrian cargo is controlled by officials of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Corps, the U.S. has claimed in court cases seized from the ships. The court case says the purpose of the Iranian operations is to circumvent sanctions against both Iran and Syria to fund IRGC. Such tankers often carry oil worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Distractors often declare false destinations, use old, rusty tankers to avoid being notified and sometimes carry oil from one ship to another at sea to prevent detection, local military officials said.

Israel has also publicly accused Iran of ruin and sabotage in recent weeks. Mr. Netanyahu blamed Iran last week for an explosion ripped apart by MV Helios Ray, a cargo ship owned by Israel. Iran’s foreign ministry denied that it was behind the attack.

U.S. officials blamed Iran for a series of attacks on tankers in the Persian Gulf region in 2019, some of which used mines.

Israel’s environment protection minister, Gila Gamliel, also accused Tehran last week of being behind Israel’s biggest ecological disaster ever, a spill of hundreds of tonnes of tar that covered Israel’s 100-mile plus coastline last month. Israel’s defense minister, Benny Gantz, said Israel had no evidence to suggest that Iran had deliberately caused the oil spill.

Experts believe that the series of attacks on Iranian tankers stems from the alleged act of the international community, especially after Iran broke a promise not to deliver oil from Syria from a seized tanker.

Mark Dubowitz, chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank that opposes the Iran deal and pushes a hard line against Tehran, said Israel and the US had long set their sights on Iran’s oil revenues .

“Israel has increased the game beyond sanctions to sabotage,” he said. “The Red Sea sabotage keeps pace with a broader economic warfare campaign.”

Among a dozen attacks on ships carrying Iranian oil are three such strikes in 2019, according to a shipping person. Ships used by the Islamic Republic were targeted six times in 2020, according to a second shipping staff.

The second professional said Tehran had remained silent about the attacks. “We try to keep a low profile,” he said. “It will look like a sign of weakness” if Iran complains and does not respond with a military response, he said.

In an episode last month, suspected Israeli agents attached a sleeper mine to attack an Iranian vessel while anchoring near Lebanon to deliver Iran to Syria, according to the first shipping personnel. Israel’s military did not want to comment on the incident.

Limpet mines are typically secretly attached to the hulls of ships in port and later explode, blowing holes in the sides of vessels.

A telegram messaging channel near the Iranian navy posted photos on Thursday alleging a fire aboard an Iranian vessel, the Shahr e Kord, near Latakia, Syria. The vessel is said to have been attacked by missiles. It was not possible to determine whether the incident was linked to other strikes on Iranian vessels.

The attacks attributed to the Israelis did not lead to reports of sunken ships, but the explosions forced at least two ships to return to the port in Iran, which delayed the delivery of fuel on board, Iran says shipping personnel.

U.S. officials tacitly supported U.S. administration during the Trump administration for such attacks, according to a person familiar with the matter. The two countries had a long-standing intelligence exchange relationship and the US supported the Israeli strikes in Syria.

There is at least no indication that the US will stand in Israel’s path, analysts said.

‘As long as the [Biden] “the government believes that the Israelis are staying under the threshold of great escalation or conflict, I do not think they will drive the things that Israel feels it needs to do to protect itself,” said Ilan Goldenberg, a senior fellow at the Center for New American Security in Washington.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with Israeli National Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat on Thursday to discuss a range of issues, with issues relating to Iran at the center of their discussions, officials said.

Write to Gordon Lubold at [email protected] and Benoit Faucon at [email protected]