A Kuwaiti crude carrier was “directly attacked” by Iranian forces while anchored at the Dubai port in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait’s state news agency said Tuesday morning, citing the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation.
The Dubai authorities were responding to an episode involving a drone and a Kuwaiti oil tanker that caught fire in Emirati waters, the government’s media office said. No injuries were reported among the tanker’s 24 crew members, whose safety had been secured, the media office said. It added that maritime firefighting teams were working to bring the fire under control.
The Kuwaiti Petroleum Corporation said in a statement that the tanker, called Al-Salmi, was fully laden when struck in what it said had been an Iranian attack. The vessel’s hull sustained damage, the company said, adding that the fire and damage had the potential to cause an oil spill in surrounding waters. Measures were being taken to put out the fire and mitigate any potential environmental damage, it said.
The maritime intelligence company Tanker Trackers said that, according to its tracking information, two million barrels of crude were on board the vessel — about 1.2 million from Saudi Arabia and about 800,000 from Kuwait. The tanker “was done loading a month ago,” the tanker tracking company said of the vessel on social media.
The authorities in Dubai said that they were continuing to contend with the fire and that additional information would be shared as it became available.
Iran did not immediately respond to reports of the attack.
The Kuwaiti military said it was dealing with hostile missile and drone attacks even as news of the tanker attack in Emirati waters was emerging.
On Friday, an Iranian strike injured 12 U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, two of them seriously, in an attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. And on Saturday, multiple drones struck the Kuwait International Airport, causing significant damage to its radar system, the country’s aviation authorities said. There were no reported casualties. Those strikes were part of a series of attacks recently against Israel and Gulf countries in the past several days that showed Iran retains enough missiles and drones to destabilize the region and inflict a punishing cost on its foes.
The attack on the Kuwaiti tanker comes as traffic in and around the Strait of Hormuz has come to a practical standstill amid Iranian retaliatory attacks on commercial vessels in regional waters. In March so far, fewer than 150 tankers have traversed the strait amid the attacks, according to data from S&P Market Intelligence. Normally, about 140 ships travel through the vital waterway every day, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which tracks security at sea.
Before Tuesday’s attack, the U.K.M.T.O. said in a report on Monday that it had received 24 reports of suspicious incidents affecting vessels operating in and around the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman since Feb. 28 when the United States and Israel began attacking Iran.
Ephrat Livni is a Times reporter covering breaking news around the world. She is based in Washington.
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