Iranian commandos have seized a cargo vessel with reported ties to an Israeli billionaire, taking control of the ship as it sailed near the Strait of Hormuz. The incident took place amid soaring tensions between Tehran and Tel Aviv, after Israeli forces bombed an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria earlier this month.
The Portuguese-flagged container vessel, MSC Aries, was boarded by troops with the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Saturday. The seizure occurred some 50 miles off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and was confirmed by a statement from the ship’s operator, MSC. It noted that 25 crewmen were on board at the time.
Iranian state media reported that the ship was under IRGC control and being “directed back to Iranian territorial waters,” though did not specify for what purpose. The ship is reportedly owned in part by Zodiac Maritime, a company operated by Israeli-born billionaire Eyal Ofer.
A brief video clip passed to the Associated Press by an unnamed Middle Eastern official appeared to show Iranian special operators rappelling onto the ship’s deck from a helicopter.
Iran seized an Israel-linked container ship in the Strait of Hormuz.
Video footage of the seizure has emerged showing an Iranian military helicopter hovering above the vessel and what appear to be troops descending via ropes onto the ship.
More: https://t.co/UeiXvQAbZF pic.twitter.com/sohsWqjZxJ
— Sky News (@SkyNews) April 13, 2024
The White House has acknowledged the incident and said President Joe Biden cut short a trip to Delaware to “consult with his national security team about events in the Middle East.” White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson later urged Tehran to “release the vessel and its international crew immediately,” noting the ship was manned by Estonian, Filipino, Indian, Pakistani, and Russian citizens.
“Seizing a civilian vessel without provocation is a blatant violation of international law, and an act of piracy by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization,” she added.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz similarly condemned the hijacking, calling it a “pirate operation in violation of international law” while urging for a response from allied states.
“I call on the European Union and the free world to immediately declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guards corps as a terrorist organization and to sanction Iran now,” Katz said in a statement on X.
The seizure comes weeks after Israeli forces bombed Iran’s consulate building in the Syrian capital, killing seven officials, including a senior IRGC commander. The attack triggered a major spike in regional tensions, with Iran vowing to respond in kind. Tel Aviv has since braced for retaliation, and US Central Command chief Gen. Michael Kurilla visited Israel this week to coordinate a possible response.
When asked whether Washington would directly intervene in hostilities between Israel and Iran during a Thursday press briefing, Pentagon spokesman Patrick Ryder declined to “get into hypotheticals,” only reiterating the US’ “ironclad commitment to Israel’s security.”
A number of foreign vessels transiting the Red Sea have been seized by Yemen’s Houthis in recent months, with the group saying the operations were a response to Israel’s months-long onslaught in Gaza. Washington has since carried out multiple bombing raids on the armed group, which governs parts of Yemen, though the White House later acknowledged the strikes were unlikely to stop similar seizures in the future.
Will Porter is assistant news editor at the Libertarian Institute and a regular contributor at Antiwar.com. Find more of his work at Consortium News and ZeroHedge.
unload it
Oh, that’s rich, Israel and Washington appealing to International Law.
SNL material.
“Without provocation”. Nothing like bombing an embassy. /s
I guess this shit worked on the brainwashed masses about the proxy war in Ukraine.
Or murdering a few Iranian scientists.
Or sabotaging Irans nuclear facilities.
or actually targeting hospitals
And Iran doesn’t kill anybody and never even tries.
How many scientist has Israel killed so far?
Let me guess, 14,000. Lol
So is this the “big” response promised by Iran?
No. Read the breaking news.
Attacking a vessel registered to Portugal can Portugal inv0ke NATO Article 5?
Portugal wouldn’t be that stupid to bring about WWIII.
Tim is.
lol…!
i think that he really might be.
at least Agent Julio probably gets paid for his efforts.
I am pleased that Iran is being smart about how they retaliate against the Zionist Terrorist. Bombs are not needed, it is about cutting Israel off from everything, they cut the Palestinians from. NO fuel, NO food, NO weapons, etc. NOT one drop of blood needs to be shed! Israel can join the Human Race, or they will bring on the suffering to themselves.
Read the last news… swarms of Iranian drones are traveling to Israel as I write this.
I am listening to Al Jazeera and keep wishing this is just a test, but wishing get’s nowhere.
Aljazeera sadly is giving the western version of events. I despise all media that give blind credibility to what Israel says, Aljazeera included.
WWIII has started?
That’s up to the USA probably. But one of my favorite analysts, Germán Gorraiz, says that Washington wants a triple pronged war in Eurasia this very year: intensified Ukraine, Iran now and a South China Sea war using Philippines as proxy for the summer.
Iran should have responded to the attack on their diplomatic facility with an attack on an Israeli diplomatic facility. At least it would have made it harder to ignore the “provocation” that the Iranian attack was in response to. But now we’ll once more be inundated with the word “unprovoked” by our illustrious MSM. It will rival the number of times they used the word to describe Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
What they are doing is psychological and a strategy of exhausting resources. Everyone is on high alert in anticipation of an attack. The US put more armed forces in the arena too.
Iran knows by this point that they could never compete with US propaganda, why try?
Why should they lower themselves to the levels of Israel? Embassies are holy ground of diplomacy and potentially peace.
I wasn’t saying it like I wanted it to happen. It’s like what is the point anymore. How can they, or we, think “diplomacy and potentially peace” will ever be possible?
Still why to target embassies? What Iran did (allegedly destroying two Israeli bases: a military one and an intel one) is more honest and upfront than bombing embassies.
But I concur that peace is pretty much over, because this counter-attack was provoked by the Zionists (in Israel and the USA equally) and this is what they wanted Iran to do. Now they have a pretext for further escalation and I fear that further escalation is coming.
The mainstream media will bleat “unprovoked” no matter what anyone does. Best to do what I do and ignore them.
Iran attacked the Israeli embassy in Argentina, and started this mess.
And Israel’s attack a few weeks ago was to retaliate for something Iran was alleged to have done 30 years ago. Got it.
it was actually 99 years ago
He’s talking about 1994.
No, wars. The attack on the Iranian embassy is memory holed. Or rationalized that Iran had it coming. Look at the plentiful number of idiots who, when Israel slaughters women, children and civilian men holler, “It’s all Hamas’ fault for starting the war”.
All of the years since 1948 are memory holed too. “Hamas just suddenly attacked Israel with no history or provocation”. All of the pogroms, kidnapping of children, deaths of journalists, shootings of peaceful protesters never happened.
What Iran did was effective. MSM will always find a slimy way to protect propaganda. And people will parrot it.
These are bad faith actors.
And the main reason I suggested that they attack an Israeli diplomatic facility was because it would be memory holed. And if it was done relatively quickly, that also could have prevented it from being memory holed. I’m not for attacking diplomatic facilities, I just think it would have been the best way to show the world what they were responding too. And Iran’s response with the drones and missiles on Israel soil was even more ammunition for idiots to not connect the dots and blame Iran.
Israel had the audacity to b!tch to the UN
Nope. There would have been outrage. There are no actions for which the propaganda machine would have found satisfactory. And if Iran hadn’t responded at all, the chatter would’ve been how weak they are and that would be justification to start a war and attack them.
There are no circumstances for which bad faith actors will respond in objective good faith. None.
I know that. ANY response by Iran was going to create outrage. But quickly responding in kind to Israel’s attack on Iran’s consulate would have been hard(er) to ignore Israel’s attack on Iran’s consulate. I’m sure you noticed how that was all but completely ignored by our MSM.
No it wouldn’t. It makes no difference.
Sure it would have. If I punch you in the face and you punch me back in the face immediately, that would be harder to ignore if you waited 12 days to punch me back in the face. And I already agreed it wouldn’t have mattered. I really don’t know what you want me to say. That I’m wrong about having an opinion different than yours? And it really isn’t much different.
Sorry it took 2 days to respond, I had a family crisis.
Sorry about your crisis.
Please watch Finkelstein. “Nothing will stop them”
https://rumble.com/v4q23p2-system-update-show-259.html
You can second guess but the propaganda would have been the same.
Yes, it would have been the same. I can’t agree with you on that any more wholeheartedly. Saying it would be harder to ignore the reason for Iran’s attack doesn’t change that agreement. Think attention span. Think Americans.
Americans are submissive to propaganda. It doesn’t matter how quick or tough or rational the response was.
This tells a story to the rest of world who aren’t zombies.
I wonder if Iran is now going to selectively seize all Israeli-flagged or Israeli-bound ships transiting the Gulf. That will significantly increase the hurt the Houthis are putting on Israel’s economy. Even better if they seize all such ships in the Indian Ocean, although that would put their ships at risk of encountering the US Navy.
This will also force the US Navy to start escorting ships all over the place in the Middle East- and the Navy doesn’t have the capacity.
It’s an excellent “non-violent” escalation. It may also not be the only one Iran is considering.
Money isn’t a problem. US/UK will fork over billions in aid.
This was just a prelude. Right now, as I type this, swarms of Iranian “kamikaze drones” are flying towards colonial Palestine. War has begun.
According to Alarabiya, drones being launched from Iraq, Syria as well.
I heard nothing re. Syria, not even Iraq. Yemen and Hizbollah supported the attack but that’s it. Israel tried to bomb Damascus however (Sana and YT sources).
Colonial Palestine!! 🤣
War has begun!! 🤣
Not funny: it’s worse than French Algeria and Apartheid South Africa together. It’s pretty much a small colonial version of Hitler.
Yup. Reportedly at least 200 drones from Iran, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq are in the air heading towards Israel. At least 50 from Iran.
Here is an article on one of Iran’s more significant drones:
Iran’s Arash; world’s longest-range suicide drone with high precision
https://iranpress.com/iran-s-arash-world-s-longest-range-suicide-drone-with-high-precision
Iran has a LONG list of drones, several of which have just the range needed
to hit Israel. They also have at least 500-750 ballistic missiles that
have the range to hit Israel (as well as thousands more able to hit US
bases in the region.)
I’d say the wider Middle-East war is now on. It may not escalate quickly but I think now it is clearly inevitable.
Reportedly, as many as 500 drones and missiles are inbound to Israel. If that number is correct, Israel’s Iron Dome is toast. There’s no
chance they can shoot down that many – and if many of them are targeted
against the Iron Dome system, the whole thing could be eliminated or
shut down if the command centers are hit. That would leave Israel
TOTALLY exposed to Hezbollah’s 100,000+ rockets, drones and missiles and Iran’s 500-750 ballistic missiles.
he he he
Whaaa What bout the law?
Hijacking a ship is such a stupid and outdated move.
Well, it looks like it’s an effective and modern move since US and UK do it all the time…!
Iran should not be copying the outdated WASP playbook.
And who would do the justice…? UN…? Wake up man…!
What difference does it make? The Iranians are shit under Biden’s shoe no matter what they do.
They will never be respected by the west, because the west is bigoted and racist. It’s as simple as that.
Iran doesn’t give a two cents worth crap what the west thinks. Just because the west acts as pirates in the open seas, doesn’t mean they should behave the same way. And considering their regional influence, I would think, they would have more creative ways to financial harm Israel
Hit ’em where it hurts most, in the zionist
rich’s pockets
The zionists can do the same and more to Iran.
🤷🏽♂️
Hasn’t the US or Israel seized other countries ships in International water before??
Comment over at Moon of Alabama shows the potential impact of Iran seizing this ship:
In WW1, the British occupied islands near Aden and the coast of Somalia to protect the shipping from India to England through the Suez canal. How times have changed!
This capture is problematic because the ship is apparently registered in Portugal.
Dictator lovers jumping out to support Iran.
We know Iran has been a very peaceful neighbor, not waging a proxy war against Israel for decades, and clearly not chanting Death to Israel and Death to America.
Oh, and not providing weapons to Russia to support the invasion and annexation of sovereign land.
Yeah, We ought to support Iran.
Do that again.. I double dog dare ya!
They should probably sink it in the strait.