By Hana Levi Julian, Jewish Press—
Late Tuesday “Lloyd’s List” confirmed that “reports of hijacked tanker in the Gulf of Oman, first raised by UK Maritime Trade Operations Tuesday, is the Panama-flagged asphalt tanker Asphalt Princess.”
A security source quoted by Sky News said that a group of eight or nine armed individuals were believed to have boarded the Princess. “It was an unauthorized boarding in the Gulf of Oman,” the source said.
At around 7 pm Israel time, the non-piracy “incident” that was reported earlier in the day by the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency — part of the UK Defense Ministry — was upgraded from an “incident underway” to a “potential hijack.”
According to multiple sources, Iran is believed to be involved in the hijacking of the Asphalt Princess as well as having been involved in attacks on at least four other vessels plus a suicide drone strike on an Israeli-operated vessel last week.
“Vessels are advised to exercise extreme caution when transiting in this area,” the UKMTO said in its warning.
In addition to the Princess, at least four more vessels issued an alert Tuesday via their Automatic Identification System trackers that they too were “not under command,” according to the Associated Press, MarineTraffic.com and Refinitiv. “Not under command” means a vessel has lost power and can no longer steer. One of the vessels later began moving, Stripes reported. Continue Reading….