A tanker caught fire after being struck by a projectile while traveling through the Strait of Hormuz near Oman, the British military said Monday.
The tanker reported being hit while traveling south out of the narrow waterway off the coast of Limah in Oman, U.K. Maritime Trade Operations said in a post on X. The monitoring agency, which is part of Britain’s Royal Navy, said no casualties or damage were reported and authorities are investigating. It did not specify the name of the tanker or type of projectile that hit.
U.S. and Iranian authorities did not publicly confirm the incident, which came as huge crowds in Tehran attended a funeral procession for Iran’s slain leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an airstrike in February.
Iran’s state media reported Tuesday a Qatari oil tanker was targeted after attempting to pass through the Omani side of the strait, but stopped short of claiming responsibility.
Restoring the flow of traffic through the narrow strait, which once carried a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies, is a key element of the 14-point ceasefire agreement the U.S. and Iran signed in June to end the war. A 60-day negotiating period is in place to work out some of the thorniest issues in the conflict.
Iran has repeatedly insisted it has the right to control the strait, and attacks on commercial ships have sparked clashes between Iranian and U.S. forces in recent weeks, with both sides accusing each other of violating the June agreement.
So far, the ceasefire deal has broadly held, with monitoring agencies reporting a tentative recovery in the number of ships traveling through the waterway. More than 200 ships passed through the strait in the week to Sunday, according to maritime monitor Lloyd’s List Intelligence, with daily numbers higher than before the agreement was signed but still below the levels seen before the war began in late February. The UKMTO said the maritime security threat level remains “substantial.”
On Tuesday the vast funeral procession for Khamenei moved to Qom, after huge crowds filled the streets in Tehran to bid farewell to the ayatollah who ruled the country for 37 years before being killed in an airstrike on the opening day of the war .
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said neither Iranians who turned out to mourn nor the military are “moved by any threats” in a post on X Tuesday.
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