File image.
An Israeli-owned oil tanker was attacked by an Iranian drone while sailing in the Arabian Sea on February 10, BBC Persian reported.
Citing a US military official and a regional military source, BBC Persian said on February 17 that the attack on the tanker, Campo Square, involved several Iranian ships and likely a Shahed 136 suicide drone. The drone, which was developed by Iran’s Shahed Aviation Industries, has a range of more than 2,500 kilometers and can carry a warhead weighing up to 40 kg.
Campo Square is owned by the London-based Zodiac Shipping, which belongs to Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer. Nevertheless, the tanker is currently rented out to the Piraeus-based Greek shipping company Eletson.
Eletson later confirmed the attack on the tanker in an official statement. However, it denied that Iranian naval vessels were involved.
“Eletson confirms an incident involving our managed vessel, the Liberian flagged product tanker, Campo Square,” the statement reads. “The vessel, free of cargo in ballast transit, was hit by an airborne object while in the Arabian Sea approximately 300 nautical miles off the coasts of India and Oman.”
The company said that both Campo Square and her crew are safe and proceeding as per planned passage, noting that the tanker sustained “minor damage” only.
BBC Persian reported that the drone attack on the Israeli-owned tanker can be seen as a “sign of intensification of Iran’s threatening actions against shipping in the region.”
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) may have attacked Campo Square in response to the January 28 drone attack that targeted a military industrial complex in the central Iranian city of Isfahan. Tehran blamed the attack, which resulted in limited material losses, on the Israeli intelligence.
On February 10, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry and the intelligence arm of IRGC announced in a joint statement that the involvement of Israel’s “mercenaries” in the attack had been “proven.” The statement also revealed that the “main perpetrators” were apprehended.
Tel Aviv and Tehran have been engaged in a yearslong shadow war in the Middle East. Attacks on Israeli and Iranian cargo vessels and tankers became recently a regular part of this war.
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