(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com)The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that US special operations forces raided a ship last month, several hundred miles off the coast of Sri Lanka, that had departed China and was bound for Iran.
The report, which cited unnamed US officials, said that US special operators who boarded the vessel seized the cargo and then left. Officials said that the ship was carrying components potentially useful for Iran’s weapons and that they were “dual-use items, with both civilian and military applications.”
The US officials said that the purpose of the operation was to disrupt Iran’s procurement of goods for its military following the 12-day US-Israeli war against the Islamic Republic, which damaged the country’s air defenses and other military equipment.
The report didn’t name the ship or provide any other details about the operation, and so far it hasn’t been publicly confirmed by the US, China, or Iran. But the news came a few days after the US seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, demonstrating that the Trump administration is willing to use the military to enforce sanctions in a way that marks a dramatic escalation.
Iran also seized a ship in the Gulf of Oman over the weekend that it claimed was smuggling Iranian fuel and detained the crew. The Iranian military carried out a similar seizure of a Marshal Islands-flagged tanker in the Gulf of Oman last month and released the ship a few days later without its cargo.
After the Iranian seizure last month, US Central Command put out a statement condemning the move as “illegal,” calling it “a blatant violation of international law, undermining freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce.”
Tehran has also been very critical of the US’s seizure of the tanker near Venezuela. “The United States’ detention and seizure of trade vessels belonging to other countries amounts to flagrant disregard for international law and is a blatant violation of principles ruling international maritime security and safety,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said
This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.
