Israeli-Owned Oil Tanker Hit by Kamikaze Drone

Date: 16 November 2022 - 21:41

News ID: ۱۰۹۰۸۷

DUBAI (Dispatches) — An oil tanker associated with an Israeli billionaire has been struck by a bomb-carrying drone off the coast of Oman amid heightened tensions with Iran, The Associated Press reported on Wednesday.
The attack on the Liberian-flagged oil tanker Pacific Zircon happened Tuesday night off the coast of Oman, one Mideast-based defense official said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they did not have authorization to discuss the attack publicly, the news agency said.
The Pacific Zircon is operated by Singapore-based Eastern Pacific Shipping, which is a company ultimately owned by Zionist billionaire Idan Ofer.
In a statement, Eastern Pacific Shipping said the Pacific Zircon, carrying gas oil, had been “hit by a projectile” some 150 miles (240 kilometers) off the coast of
An official of the occupying regime of Israel, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity to discuss unpublicized details of the attack, claimed that it appeared Iran carried out the attack with a Shahed-136 exploding drone.
“It is an Iranian attack, there is a consensus on this in the Israeli intelligence and defense community,” the official said.
Iran’s government did not acknowledge the attack on the Pacific Zircon.
Oil prices rose slightly as news of the attack spread, with benchmark Brent crude trading above $94 a barrel.
In 2021, a drone strike hit the Israeli-associated oil tanker Mercer Street off Oman, killing two people onboard.
It wasn’t immediately clear where the vessel was Wednesday. Satellite-tracking data from late Tuesday provided by MarineTraffic.com put the vessel deep in the Arabian Sea after leaving the Omani port of Sohar.
Torbjorn Soltvedt, an analyst at the risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft, said the attack “does not come as a surprise.”
“There is not just an increasing risk of disruptive attacks against energy infrastructure in the region, but also a growing risk of a wider military confrontation with more serious consequences for world energy markets,” he said.