A cargo ship was attacked by drones while sailing near the Umm Qasr port in Iraq on Monday. On Tuesday, Iran’s terrorist Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed responsibility for a missile attack against a commercial vessel, describing it as justified retaliation for an attack by the “terrorist and child-killing U.S. military” against an Iranian ship.
The first incident occurred on Monday, roughly 40 nautical miles southeast of Umm Qasr. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center (UKMTO) said the ship involved was hit by an unknown “projectile” on its starboard side, resulting in a large explosion.
According to Iraqi officials, a second blast on the same ship was caused by a drone attack while emergency crews were addressing the damage from the first explosion.
“As we were assessing the damage from the first explosion, we heard a drone hovering overhead, followed by a powerful blast that sparked a fire on the tanker,” said a member of the Iraqi maritime patrol.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, and UKMTO did not identify the vessel that was targeted.
Later on Monday, the EOS Marine security service said the ship was the Panama-flagged MSC Sariska V, owned by the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), the world’s largest container shipping line.
“MSC Sarisky V was struck with what is likely a USV in Iraqi territorial waters after it had completed unloading its cargo at the port of Umm Qasr in southern Iraq,” said EOS Marine Head of Advisory Martin Kelly. USV stands for Uncrewed Surface Vessel, or a drone boat.
MSC confirmed on Tuesday that Sariska V was hit by two projectiles at Umm Qasr. The company said it was “deeply concerned by these unprovoked attacks and the risk they create for its innocent seafarers and essential maritime trade in the region.”
Iran’s state-run Tasnim news service published a statement from the IRGC Navy that said it attacked the Sariska V, a vessel owned by the “U.S.-Zionist enemy” with a cruise missile in retaliation for a U.S. attack against an Iranian ship called MV Lian Star in the Sea of Oman.
The IRGC added that “any act of aggression by the U.S. military in the region would be met with a decisive response.”
The Lian Star is a Gambia-flagged cargo ship that attempted to penetrate the U.S. blockade of Iran on Friday night. After the ship ignored more than 20 warnings from the U.S. Navy, it was disabled with a Hellfire missile strike on its engine room and left adrift in the Gulf of Oman.
“U.S. forces have disabled five commercial vessels and redirected 116 to fully enforce the blockade as a ceasefire with Iran remains in effect,” CENTCOM noted in its statement on the Lian Star incident.