"The ship was seized after a confiscation order issued by the court." The shipowner would have been insolvent in paying some debts incurred in the country.
The MV Maersk Tigris, left yesterday from the port of Jebel Ali and headed towards Larak Island, was passing through international waters in the Strait of Hormuz, when she was approached by five Iranian patrol boats. The military ordered the captain to veer towards Iranian territorial waters for further checks. At the captain's refusal, the patrol boats opened fire on the boat flying the flag of the Marshall Islands (but owned by the United States).
The crew of 34 sailors of different nationalities (including some Europeans but no American), has surrendered to the Iranians who boarded the boat have seized the boat. Some sailors would have been injured. Shortly before surrendering to the military, the captain of the freighter launched a distress signal to the regional command of the US Naval Forces who received the SOS.
The Pentagon immediately ordered the nearest unit, the Arleigh Burke missile destroyer USS Farragut, to travel to the area at full speed, but a contact with Iranian naval forces would appear to be averted. The freighter, escorted by the patrols of the Republican Guard, should soon reach Bandar Abbas, the largest base in the Iranian Navy, in the Persian Gulf. In the region, the United States has about thirty ships and at least four attack submarines, but the Pentagon would not have ordered any movement to the fleet.
The Marshall Islands are an independent and sovereign state, but entrust their defense to the United States.
Despite the official version, the feeling is that this action was a response to the US naval operation last week, when an entire battle group would trace a convoy of Iranian ships headed to the Gulf of Aden, presumably to deliver weapons to the rebels Houthi.
Franco Iacch
