LONDON: A British oil tanker has halted its journey through the Strait of Hormuz for fear of being seized by Iran in response to the capture of a ship by UK forces last week.
The ship British Heritage, run by oil company BP, has dropped anchor off the coast of Saudi Arabia inside the Arabian Gulf, Bloomberg reported.
The tanker was sailing toward Basrah terminal in Iraq when ship tracking showed it performed a U-turn within 40 kilometers of the port on Saturday.
The ship, which can carry 1 million barrels of oil, is now anchored off the eastern coast of the Kingdom.
The vessel is flying under the British flag and had been chartered by Royal Dutch Shell to transport crude from Basrah to northwest Europe, Bloomberg reported. It didn’t collect that cargo and the booking was canceled.
The report said BP fears the ship could become a target of Iranian forces seeking to retaliate for the seizing by British Royal Marines of the Grace 1 last week off the coast of Gibraltar. BP refused to comment on the status of the British Heritage when contacted by Arab News.
The UK said the Iranian tanker Grace 1 was attempting to deliver Iranian oil to Syria via the Mediterranean in breach of international sanctions.
Tehran called the seizure of its tanker “an act of piracy” and a former Revolutionary Guard chief said Iran should seize a British ship in response.
The Iranian regime has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, the channel the British Heritage would need to sail through to leave the Arabian Gulf. The narrow waterway, which is a conduit for about a fifth of the world’s crude oil supplies, forces vessels to sail close to the Iranian coast.
Iran has received international condemnation after the US said Tehran was responsible for a string of attacks on vessels in the waters off the UAE and Oman.
British oil tanker anchors off Saudi Arabian coast amid fears of Iranian retaliation
British oil tanker anchors off Saudi Arabian coast amid fears of Iranian retaliation
- The ship British Heritage, run by oil company BP, has dropped anchor off the coast of Saudi Arabia
- The tanker was sailing toward Basrah terminal in Iraq when ship tracking showed it performed a U-turn
Video shows armed men beating a Palestinian in West Bank
- The previous incident was in September and cost the business more than $600,000 as offices and facilities were damaged, he said
TEL AVIV: Dozens of masked men armed with sticks beat and injured a Palestinian in the Israeli-occupied West Bank when they attacked a plant nursery, according to people who saw the attack and video footage obtained by The Associated Press.
Video filmed by security cameras shows men dressed mostly in black, faces covered, with several hitting and kicking a man on the ground.
Two witnesses who are members of the family that owns the facility said Israeli settlers beat 67-year-old Basim Saleh Yassin as he was trying to flee the German-Palestinian-run nursery in the northern West Bank village of Deir Sharaf. Both spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
BACKGROUND
The attack is the latest in rising Israeli settler violence in the West Bank, where assaults increased during the Palestinian olive harvest in October and have continued.
Workers fled when they saw the settlers coming on Thursday but Yassin is deaf and couldn’t hear the warnings to leave, one family member said.
The witnesses said Yassin was in the hospital with broken bones in his hand and other injuries to his face, chest and back. Four cars at the nursery were burned.
The attack is the latest in rising Israeli settler violence in the West Bank, where assaults increased during the Palestinian olive harvest in October and have continued.
Israeli authorities have done little beyond issuing occasional condemnations of the violence.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the perpetrators “a handful of extremists” and urged law enforcement to pursue them for “the attempt to take the law into their own hands.”
But rights groups and Palestinians say the problem is far greater than a few bad actors, and attacks have become a daily phenomenon across the territory.
Israel’s army said it dispatched soldiers to the Shavei Shomron junction — close to the area of Thursday’s attack — following reports of dozens of masked Israelis vandalizing property.
The army said it apprehended three suspects who were taken to police for questioning. It said security forces condemn violence of any kind.
According to one of the family members who own the nursery, it was the third time in a year that the facility was attacked.
The previous incident was in September and cost the business more than $600,000 as offices and facilities were damaged, he said.
In the video of Thursday’s attack, Yassin runs from a group of masked people before falling to the ground.
One man kicks him and another hits him twice with what appears to be a stick. Yassin stays on his knees as he’s struck again and then places his hands on the ground.
As the men are leaving, one kicks him in the head while others strike him again until he’s seen lying on the pavement.
