By Anas al-Bar | 2024-01-20

The United States and its allies are taking measures to put an end to the attacks by Iran and its proxies on maritime traffic in strategic international waterways including the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf.

Iranian naval forces on January 11 seized a Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker, St. Nikolas, in the Gulf of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz.

St. Nikolas, leased by the Turkish oil refinery company TUPRAS, was loaded with Iraqi crude purchased from Iraq's State Organization for Marketing Oil (SOMO).

Masked men wearing black military gear boarded the tanker during its transit, some 50 nautical miles east of the coastal city of Sohar in Oman.

Soon afterward, in a post on X, the British army's Maritime Trade Operations Authority said it had lost contact with it.

Tanker Trackers said it had located St. Nikolas on January 13, east of Iran's Qeshm Island, but its automatic identification system (AIS) was offline, Al-Arabiya reported.

Empire Navigation, the Greek shipping company that owns the vessel, said the ship's crew consisted of a Greek national and 18 Filipinos.

In a Sunday (January 14) statement, Empire Navigation said an associate had contacted Iranian authorities and reported that "all the crew members on board the St. Nikolas are safe and in good health."

The company added that it had not been itself able to directly contact the 19-man crew of the Marshall Islands-flagged ship, which is anchored in the vicinity of the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, AFP reported.

St. Nikolas was carrying a shipment of 145,000 metric tons of crude oil from Basra in Iraq, and was headed to a port in Türkiye via the Suez Canal.

British maritime risk company Ambrey this week said the recently renamed tanker was previously prosecuted and fined for carrying sanctioned Iranian oil.

In September, the United States said it had several months earlier seized the Suez Rajan and its cargo of 980,000 barrels of crude oil.

The US Department of Justice said at the time that the oil on the Greek-managed tanker was allegedly being sold by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to China.

Disrupting maritime security

The United States condemned Iran's action and demanded the immediate release of the tanker and its crew.

Iran's seizure of St. Nikolas is not the first incident of its kind, political analyst Tariq al-Shammari told Al-Fassel, noting that the IRGC seized oil tankers in the same waters as recently as last year.

Iran's actions, aimed at harming maritime security, are taken as Tehran intends to extend its influence in the region and blackmail the international community, he said.

Al-Shammari said the recent incident is a hostile act against Iraq, whose economy primarily relies on the proceeds of its global oil sales.

Tehran's action "undermines Iranian officials' repeated claims that Tehran is Baghdad's ally and supports its stability and prosperity," al-Shammari said.

Iran's recurring acts of piracy in the Strait of Hormuz and its attacks in the Red Sea demonstrate how it continues to defy international laws and regulations, and appears determined to escalate its subversive actions, he said.

Bolstered US presence

The Gulf region has two of the most important maritime traffic lanes in the world; the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb strait at the southern entrance to the Red Sea.

About one-sixth of global oil production and one-third of the world's liquefied natural gas pass through Hormuz each year, while approximately 17,000 ships pass through Bab al-Mandeb.

Shipping traffic in this vital waterway has witnessed a sharp decline in security amid the ongoing attacks the Iran-backed Houthis have carried out against commercial shipping from Yemen.

In a move to combat these threats, the United States and United Kingdom, with support from a number of allies, attacked several Houthi military sites in Yemen.

Early this month, the United States announced the formation of a multi-national alliance, Operation Prosperity Guardian, to ensure the freedom of navigation in the Red Sea.

The US Navy's 5th Fleet also has bolstered its presence in the Gulf waters with 3,000 more sailors and soldiers, the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan, and the dock landing ship USS Carter Hall.

The 5th Fleet's scope of operations extends over an area of about 2.5 million square miles, encompassing the Gulf of Oman, Red Sea, parts of the Indian Ocean and the Strait of Hormuz, Suez Canal and Bab al-Mandeb strait.

Iran's expansionist actions

The US presence in the region "is part of a strategic presence that guarantees security for global trade, and balance in international relations," Iraqi Center for Strategic Studies director Ghazi Faisal Hussein told Al-Fassel.

"Washington and the international community will not stand idly by in the face of Iran's continued attempts to undermine regional security and stability via the Houthis, Lebanese Hizbullah or its other armed proxies in Iraq and Syria," he said.

"International efforts are focused on preventing the Iranian regime from using these proxies to inflame the critical situation in the Middle East and achieve their ambitious goals of expansion and dominance," Hussein added.