An oil tanker flying the U.S. maritime flag was attacked as it was docked in the port of Bahrain, according to Crowley, the Florida-based company operating the vessel. One shipyard worker was reported dead and two others injured, the company said in a statement, adding that the ship had “suffered damage due to aerial impacts.”
It is not clear who attacked the tanker, the Stena Imperative. American mariners operate U.S.-flagged vessels, and Crowley said the mariners on the tanker had reported no injuries. The attack caused a fire onboard, which Crowley said was extinguished in short order.
The Stena Imperative is part of a fleet of roughly 10 commercial tankers that can be called on to help support the U.S. miliary in times of conflict. However, the ship was not in Bahrain for that purpose, a Crowley spokesman, David DeCamp, said in an email. It was there, he said, “for planned maintenance and regulatory-required inspections,” adding that it had no fuel cargo.
The vessel was attacked shortly after 2 a.m. local time on Monday, according to Crowley. It was in a dry dock at Khalifa bin Salman Port at the time, according to Kpler, a global ship-tracking firm.
The port sits north of Qatar and across the Persian Gulf from Iran, where the United States and Israel have been conducting airstrikes since Saturday. Iran and allied militias have responded with strikes around the gulf and on U.S. targets in the region.
Last month, Iranian gunboats intercepted the same tanker as it entered the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz, south of Bahrain, according to the British maritime risk insurance broker Vanguard Tech. The Iranian crews ordered the tanker to stop and prepare to be boarded, though the ship managed to accelerate and continue its voyage, Vanguard said.
At least five other oil tankers have been attacked since that episode, according to a Times analysis of satellite imagery, maritime reports, ship tracking data and official statements. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps claimed responsibility for three of the attacks, according to Iran’s semiofficial Mehr News Agency.
Christiaan Triebert is a Times reporter working on the Visual Investigations team, a group that combines traditional reporting with digital sleuthing and analysis of visual evidence to verify and source facts from around the world.
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