Iranian ship affiliated with IRGC attacked – initial report

An Iranian cargo ship affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps was reportedly attacked off the coast of Eritrea in the Red Sea on Tuesday, according to the Saudi Al-Arabiya news outlet. The reports remained unconfirmed by any official source, but the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim news reported that the ship was damaged in an explosion caused by limpet mines on the hull of the ship.

The ship allegedly involved in the incident is the Saviz, an Iranian vessel that was in the Red Sea to support Iranian commandos escorting commercial vessels, according to the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim news. The Savis has been stationed in recent years in the Red Sea, according to Tasnim.

The vessel reportedly showed up on independent ship tracking site MarineTraffic at about 4:45 a.m. on Tuesday before dropping off the map again at 9:44 a.m., according to social media reports.

The alleged incident, if true, comes after two strikes on Israeli vessels in the region and reports of dozens of earlier strikes carried out by Israel and Iran on each other’s maritime vessels in locations ranging from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf.

Late last month, an Iranian missile was reportedly fired at an Israeli ship between India and Oman, striking and damaging the ship. In February, Iran allegedly attacked the Israeli-owned cargo vessel MV Helios Ray, which was damaged by an explosion in the Gulf of Oman.

Additionally in March, Maariv, The Jerusalem Post’s sister publication, reported that dozens of Iranian ships had been attacked by Israel throughout the Middle East, after The Wall Street Journal reported that a dozen Iranian oil tankers headed to Syria had been attacked by Israel.

The report also comes as Iran meets with European and American officials to discuss a possible return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal.The US denied any involvement in the incident on Tuesday night, US officials told Reuters. Following a Jerusalem Post query, the IDF said that it doesn’t respond to foreign reports. 

Earlier on Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israel would defend itself against Iranian threats in the backdrop of the indirect negotiations between Iran and the world powers.

“We cannot back the dangerous nuclear plan, because a nuclear Iran is an existential threat and a very big threat to the security of the whole world,” said Netanyahu in a meeting of the Likud faction in the Knesset. “We must act against the fanatical regime in Iran that is simply threatening to erase us from the earth…We will always know to defend ourselves by ourselves from those who seek to kill us.”