A tanker anchored off the coast of the United Arab Emirates near the Strait of Hormuz was hit by a projectile early Tuesday, the first such strike in and around the vital waterway in five days, a British maritime monitoring agency said.
The tanker was hit near the port of Fujairah, at the southern end of the strait, and sustained minor damage, according to United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations. There were no reports of injuries and the authorities were investigating.
At least 17 vessels have been attacked in the region since U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran began in late February.
The United Arab Emirates’ air defenses were intercepting missile and drone threats from Iran throughout Tuesday morning, the country’s Defense Ministry said in a statement. In Abu Dhabi, the capital, a person from Pakistan was killed by falling shrapnel from a missile interception, the city’s authorities said on Tuesday morning.
Fujairah and Abu Dhabi are at two ends of an oil pipeline that circumvents the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil usually passes. The International Energy Agency recently estimated that more than a quarter of the oil typically exported through the strait in the form of either crude or fuels like diesel was still able to get out thanks to the pipeline.
But Iran has targeted facilities on both ends, and has said that it would not allow oil shipments that benefit the United States and its allies to pass through the strait.
The city of Fujairah said on social media early Tuesday that a drone attack had caused a fire at the Fujairah Oil Industry Zone, which includes one of the world’s largest oil storage and export terminals. It said that no injuries had been reported and did not specify the source of the attack.
The loading berths at Fujairah’s oil tanker terminal were halted as of Tuesday morning, according to a notice by Inchcape Shipping Services, a multinational port agency that operates there.
The Emirati authorities also closed the country’s airspace for hours as an “exceptional precautionary measure” early Tuesday, the state news agency, WAM, reported. The closure halted all flights over the country, including those at Dubai International Airport, one of the busiest in the world. Air traffic resumed later in the morning, the news agency reported.
John Yoon is a Times reporter based in Seoul who covers breaking and trending news.
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