The Iran navy boarded and temporarily held an oil tanker this week near the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. military intelligence reports say.
The tanker Wila was in the Gulf of Oman when it was boarded for about five hours late Wednesday, a U.S. government official said. The U.S. military didn't say why Iran had held the tanker. Iran officials and state news media haven't given a reason for the seizure.
The ship traversed the Strait of Hormuz, ship-monitoring records collected by Bloomberg show. The strait is a narrow passage for roughly 33 percent of the world's crude oil transported by sea
The Wila is a Liberian-flagged tanker and was currently moored near the United Arab Emirates' Khor Fakkan port, based on tracking information released by Refinitiv.
The incident took place in international waters in the Sea of Oman, also known as Makran, which links the Arabian Sea with the Strait of Hormuz and runs to the Persian Gulf.
Iran frequently intercepts vessels it claims have entered its territorial waters. In July last year its navy briefly held a British-flagged tanker in the Gulf of Oman after Europe had seized the Iranian tanker Grace 1 - which it alleged had violated sanctions against Syria. Iran's Revolutionary Guards seized six tankers in 2019 for alleged smuggling of fuel.
Tensions between Iran and the U.S. remain high. U.S. President Donald Trump is considering increasing sanctions on Iran and expanding an existing weapons embargo. Tensions have mounted since 2018 when Trump pulled the U.S. out of a multinational treaty that halted Iran's nuclear activity.
