UK-flagged tanker seized by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in Strait of Hormuz

| July 19, 2019

stena bulk carrier
Stena Impero

Topping off a busy week in the Straights of Hormuz. First, three Iranian gunboats failed in an attempt to seize a British oil tanker on Wednesday. HMS Montrose was escorting the vessel and pointed its weapons on the IRGC gunboats. The next day an Iranian drone was downed by the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer, by electronic jamming. Now this.

By Greg Norman

Iran has seized a British-flagged oil tanker Friday in the Strait of Hormuz amid growing tensions in the region.

The Stena Impero, which has a crew of 23 on board, “was approached by unidentified small crafts and a helicopter during transit of the Strait of Hormuz while the vessel was in international waters,” Stena Bulk, the shipping company that owns the vessel, said in a statement. “We are presently unable to contact the vessel which is now heading north towards Iran.”

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard forces, in a statement on their website, say the ship was seized for “non-compliance with international maritime laws and regulations” and is being brought to an unnamed Iranian port, according to the Associated Press.

Websites tracking the ship’s path show it turning sharply in the direction of Iran’s Qeshm Island, instead of its intended destination of Saudi Arabia.

Apparently Iran has forgotten Operation Praying Mantis, and is in need of a refresher. Read the entire article here: Fox News

Category: Breaking News, Foreign Policy, International Affairs, Iran, Navy

39 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
ChipNASA

Now they’re claiming they are diverting a second tanker.

https://www.reuters.com/article/mideast-iran-tanker-britain-second/second-tanker-in-gulf-turns-sharply-towards-iran-refinitiv-data-shows-idUSL2N24K0X8

Shit’s really REALLY about to go down now.

11B-Mailclerk

The key is, the response has to be -grindingly- humiliating to the leadership, inconceivable, and something that cannot match.

What -should- have happened, is a tanker “Q-ship” sinking a crap-ton of their assets, on livestream.

Then maybe launching an over-the horizon salvo of harpoons and/or tomahawks at their nearest Navy base.

Warships and air assets then sprint in to catch any others that come out to play.

Operation Tar Baby

Ex-PH2

If Vlad Putin has anything to do with it, at all – he’s been shipping equipment to them recently – he may be meddling to get higher prices for Gazprom’s oil and gas.

This nonsense can put a bouncy house on crude futures.

11B-Mailclerk

Iran is playing that game.

While VP is likely cheering them on, I suspect he is a bit too shrewd to even potentially get his fingerprints on this one. -Way- too likely to cause blowback.

Mason

I think your Q-ship idea is probably what they’ll do. That and having destroyers nearby are what they did to combat the Somali pirates.

Though I’d rather see some massive strikes. Some cruise missiles and let the muzzle and leash off Israel and Iran won’t be a problem for long.

Fyrfighter

I like the “Q” ship idea there 11B, that’d definitely get their attention..

11B-Mailclerk

I was trying to imagine how we could tempt them to grab an “oil” tanker loaded with LNG, to be taken to a “guards” facility and …. ooops.

If they would seize an “abandoned” tanker “adrift” …

Not quite a nuke, but wow what a mushroom cloud.

11B-Mailclerk

Sadly, zer0 has them convinced they can win via their blackmail antics. They will be unlikely to back off short of a major strike. They won’t even admit to the drone, and will go after tankers of UK and others, thinking “-this- will cow them!”.

Trump’s humanity of not killing a hundred ADA folks over a drone may now result in a wider fracas. They will likely convince themselves that is is weakness, not playing US media games.

Both sides evaluate the other as weak and nuts. That rarely ends well.

Mantis 2.0, at least.

26Limabeans

Find a huge barracks.
Make it the opening salvo.

11B-Mailclerk

The mad mullahs are likely far less concerned with their military casualties than we are of theirs, at least in terms of enlisted and “non-connected” officers.

Now, trashing a pipeline or three, or worse their major refinery? Ouch.

If their -leadership- is at risk…

USMC Steve

True dat. When dealing with a military dictatorship that cares not a bit about its people, only staying in power, the only way to deal with that regime is to kill its leaders. Then they have to get the message. If the successors continue to be stupid mooslems, kill them too. Eventually someone will get the picture. Or the mooslems will run out of Iranians.

Slow Joe

I agree with your analysis. At the time I supported the President’s decision to not strike back after the drone, but it obviously has come to bite us in the ass.

Every time we restrain ourselves the muzzies see weakness.

Perhaps you are right and it is time to release the dogs.

Oh, the smell of gunpowder and the enemy’s fear. What wouldn’t I give for another chance to feed the beast inside, to feel the anticipation of combat, and to walk on the fields of the conquered enemy after the sounds of battle go suddenly quiet, and nothing is left but the grunts establishing a security perimeter to consolidate and reorganize, and Charlie Mike / continue mission.

11B-Mailclerk

If the diplos can work this out properly, and spare the loss of one more of our folks to the abbatior, I will be a happy man.

If we do hit them, doing so in a way that leaves them little way to hit back is likely our best bet. Iranians are -not- anything like who we have fought in Iraq. Their folks are proud and fairly smart/organized. Invasion would be a mess.

The locals will turn on the Mullahs if we do this right. Not, however, if folks “thunder run” them. They will fight, and hard.

Making them look weak and stupid, without a general slaughter, is better.

FatCircles0311

Sending some jdams right into Iran would send the message.

RGR 4-78

Operation “Sterno Impero”, burn em.

Toxic Deplorable B Woodman

(snicker)

Anonymous

Get some! (Mk 77s now… )

Ex-PH2

Two tankers, huh? That’s not counting the UAE tanker which went “silent” a few days ago in the Strait of Hormuz.

The Iranians are bluffing. They WANT a bomb dropped on Iran. That way, they can be the “poor things who dindo nuffin'” except hijack ships that were in international waters.

Poker, not chess. Up the ante.

Ex-PH2

And while I’m at it, start putting guns on those tankers.

Toxic Deplorable B Woodman

I like your thinking, Ex.
If the Iranians want to start acting like non-state pirates on the open seas, treat ’em like such. Light ’em up! And those that don’t get sunk, hang ’em from the highest yardarm.

Fyrfighter

And pull into port with them still hanging..

Sarge

Operation Hold My Beer as turmp lights up the Iranian ports.

Could we have one JDAM hit one of the oil ships?

Fireworks for days!

Ex-PH2

How about a decoy ship instead?

5th/77th FA

Just like a young’un, dog, or Private Snuffy; The more you let them get away with, the more they will try to get away with. And as we all know, and Ex commented, they WANT us to do something so they can throw the victim card down. How much you reckon lurch and oblowme has told them lately? Do they not realize that we can ruin their whole day and never put a single boot on their ground?

Toxic Deplorable B Woodman

Hmmmmmm. Is there such a thing as a non-nuke HE EMP bomb?
If so, blow one over “international” waters (Straits of Hormuz), but close enough to the nearest Iran bases, to fry every electronics, motor, and generator.

CCO
Toxic Deplorable B Woodman

Non Nuclear EMP cruise missle. Me like!

Ex-PH2

How about pulling a McHale’s Navy and drop some depth charges?
The Navy had to stop doing that because the ecohippies in Green Pieces thought the noise would damage the hearing of cetaceans, without realizing that whales and other cetaceans get sound through through fats surrounding the lower jaw that transmit sound to the inner ear. They have no external ears and their ear canals are plugged with wax.

11B-Mailclerk

I am imagining Letters of Marque auctioned to Good-ol-boys. Imagine some of today’s high-performance aqua-toys, maybe armed with whatever surplus torpedos and ordinance the Navy might care to surplus off.

(over open channel). Y’all have some nice bass boats n all. Hold mah beer and watch -this-! (Whoosh!)

Ex-PH2

Bummer. That could buy a trip to the Apollo 11 landing site.

USMC Steve

Fuel Air Explosive bomb. Very impressive and makes a big damned boom.

Cameron Kingsley

I think Israel would be a good asset for this.

11B-Mailclerk

One of the reasons that the Doolittle Raid on Japan was so effective is that the IJN leadership loudly proclaimed we could not hit the home islands.

Then we did.

It was a trivial hit, but the repercussions were huge. The loss of face even more so.

Perform a thorough review of what the Mad Mullahs have widely said to their folks “the Americans cant/wont do X!”, that is basically a raid, then stick it up their turbans.

Let the pointy-end get some, and -creatively-

Ex-PH2

Exactly: do something that will embarrass them so much that they’ll quit making nuisances of themselves for a while.

That won’t last forever, but it’s a start.

Anonymous

Hello, Marines? Those Barbary pirates are acting up again…

Ex-PH2

And this morning’s news says that Iran now claims the UK-flagged tanker seized yesterday had “bumped a fishing boat” and the incident had to be investigated.

Okay, sure. Are they backing down now?

https://www.businessinsider.com/iran-says-british-tanker-seized-collision-with-fishing-boat-2019-7