Iran’s largest navy ship sank under unclear circumstances

TEHRAN – The hours of fighting to control an oil tanker fire in the Gulf of Oman have been in vain. Iranian Navy confirmed today the sinking of the ship “Kharg”, the largest of the army of Iran.

The the crew could be evacuated before the vessel sank in front of the port of Jask, southeast of Tehran, near the Strait of Hormuz, which gives access to the Persian Gulf, according to an official statement.

The fire started early today and He unleashed himself in “one of the systems” of the ship, specifies the text published by the Navy without giving more details.. The satellites of the National Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) They identified the fire at the site when they saw a thick plume of smoke rising from the sea.

Firefighters tried to contain it immediately, but after 20 hours of operation, “given the spread of the fire, Kharg’s rescue mission failed and the ship sank near Jask,” authorities said.

Iranian authorities present the ship as a “Support school boat”, which has been in service for over four decades. But according to information from the Global Security site, an American page specializing in military matters, it is a “tanker” and “helicopter carrier” refueller, built in the United Kingdom.

The official report adds that the ship, which was delivered to Iran in 1984, had recently carried “A training mission” in international waters.

Similar incidents have occurred with Iranian ships in previous years. In 2018, an Iranian navy destroyer sank in the Caspian Sea. Two years later, in 2020, 19 sailors were killed during maneuvers after a warship was mistakenly hit by gunfire.

In April, a “commercial vessel”, the “Saviz”, suffered material damage in the Red Sea due to an explosion of undetermined origin. The newspaper The New York Times assured that the incident was product of an Israeli attack, in response to “previous Iranian attacks on Israeli ships”.

The The US Navy then accused Iran of filling ships with limpet mines, some explosives with a timer normally placed by divers in the hulls of ships.

Iran has denied the accusationAlthough images released by the United States show members of the Revolutionary Guards removing an unexploded mine from a ship.

These incidents occurred after rising tensions between Washington and Tehran, after the then President of the United States, Donald trump, unilaterally withdraw your country from Iran’s nuclear deal with international powers.

The conflict around the Oil. The Iranian government announced a few days ago that its pipeline project to Jask was completed and that the oil could have been transported to the port.

For Iran, exporting crude via Jask means saving several days of navigation, In addition to avoiding the Strait of Hormuz, a hotbed of tension between Iran and the United States, whose warships are present in the region.

AFP and AP agencies

THE NATION

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