Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed responsibility for an attack on an oil tanker in The Gulf on Thursday.
Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported that the Safesea Vishnu ship, flying the Marshall Islands flag, was hit “after it failed to comply with warnings and requests from the Revolutionary Guard Navy.”
According to Iran, the ship is US-owned.
Iraqi authorities said earlier that at least one person had been killed in an attack on two oil tankers in The Gulf.
The attack in Iraqi territorial waters was a violation of the country’s sovereignty, state news agency INA quoted a military spokesman as saying.
The Indian news agency PTI said the deceased was an Indian national and that the attack had been carried out by an Iranian “suicide” boat designed for kamikaze missions.
Iran’s parliamentary speaker meanwhile warned the United States and Israel against attacking islands in The Gulf.
“Any aggression against soil of Iranian islands will shatter all restraint,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf wrote on X. “We will abandon all restraint and make the Persian Gulf run with the blood of invaders.”
“The blood of American soldiers is Trump’s personal responsibility,” the former general added.
It was initially unclear what had triggered Ghalibaf’s threats. Several islands lie in The Gulf south of Iran and play a strategically and economically important role for Tehran’s leadership.
Iran’s Kharg Island is the most important export terminal for Iranian oil in The Gulf. It was repeatedly targeted during the Iran-Iraq War in 1980-88.