by Assaf Golan , Neta Bar and News Agencies
Iran says Israel is behind an attack in the Mediterranean Sea last week that damaged an Iranian container ship. Defense Minister Benny Gantz: We thwart attempts to augment enemy military capabilities by air, sea and land.
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| A fire aboard the Shahr e Kord vessel on Saturday | Photo: Twitter |
Israel is highly likely to have been behind an attack in the Mediterranean Sea last week that damaged an Iranian container ship, an Iranian investigator said on Saturday, Iran's media reported.
The Shahr e Kord vessel was hit by "an explosive object" which caused a small fire, but no one on board was hurt, Iran said on Friday. Two maritime security sources said initial indications suggested the ship was intentionally targeted by an unknown source.
"Considering the geographical location and the way the ship was targeted, one of the strong possibilities is that this terrorist operation was carried out by the Zionist regime [Israel]," an unnamed member of the Iranian team investigating the incident was quoted as saying by semi-official Nournews.
Iran's Shipping Lines spox says Shahre Kord cargo ship was attacked by an explosive object on Wednesday in intl waters of Mediterranean, where it was en route to Europe. It's act of terrorism and Iran will legally pursue it to find culprits. Once repaire, it'll continue its trip. https://t.co/xQ7Z6wNAGg
— Reza Khaasteh (@Khaaasteh) March 12, 2021
Defense Minister Benny Gantz declined to comment directly on the incident but he said Iran regularly sent weapons to its proxies in the region.
Addressing a webinar hosted by his Blue and White party on Saturday, Gantz noted that Israel "thwarts [illegal] weapon supplies" and attempts to augment enemy "military capabilities by air, sea and land. ... And by this, I am not saying whether we did or did not do this or that."
IDF Navy officials refused to comment on the alleged attack on the Iranian ship, but an Israeli naval warfare expert told Israel Hayom two years ago that "at any given moment, Israel knows the location of every single vessel around the globe."
He added: "We are aware of all ship movements anywhere at sea, and we track every suspicious vessel whose activities we consider important. Because ships move slowly, we can information from many sources on the ground, the sky and even space. As for anyone ship of interest to us, we compile a broad file before it enters the region."
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said reports confirmed an act of sabotage in violation of international law, state media said.
"Measures to identify the perpetrators of this sabotage action are on the agenda," he said.
The Iranian investigator said explosive projectiles could have been fired from an aerial vehicle, hitting containers on the ship's deck.
Iran's state-run shipping company IRISL said it would take legal action to identify the perpetrators of the attack, which it called terrorism and naval piracy.
The incident came two weeks after an Israeli-owned ship the MV HELIOS RAY was hit by an explosion in the Gulf of Oman.
The cause was not immediately clear, although a US defense official said the blast left holes in both sides of the vessel's hull. Israel accused Iran of being behind the explosion, a charge the Islamic republic denied.
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal on Saturday quoted US and "regional" officials as saying that Israel has targeted at least a dozen Iranian oil vessels bound for Syria "out of concern that petroleum profits are funding extremism in the Middle East."
According to the report, in 2019 alone Israel hit Iranian vessels sailing toward Syria over a dozen times. Some of the attacks have also targeted Iranian efforts to smuggle weapons through the region, US officials told the paper.
An Israeli defense official told Israel Hayom that "the security details on these vessels are completely irrelevant because they cannot content with a military force, and that's not why they're on the ship anyway. Therefore, to send a force to attach a mine [to the ship] is a very easy operation. Case in point, the Iranians easily hit Rami Ungar's ship near Yemen; they did it themselves or via a terrorist organization, but it wasn't something extraordinary from their perspective."
In response to the latest alleged Israeli naval attack, Gen. Esmail Ghaani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force – Iran's elite extraterritorial black-ops arm – warned that Iran would "break the walls Israel is building around itself."
He continued: "Israel today, like its ally the United States, is weaker than ever. It builds walls around itself in the hope they will protect it, but we will break and tear them down. Today, as we can see, the United States is suffering from severe internal problems. As students of the shahid (martyr) Qassem Soleimani, we will continue on our path and break the bones of the United States."
Former Israeli Navy officer Col. (ret.) Mike Eldar told Israel Hayom that "Israel can arrange an operation where it sends a team from Shayetet 13 (naval commandos) to attach a mine to a ship, which can even be done at the port of destination or any other way station. The [commandos] can easily swim to the ship undetected, and many such operations have been carried out over the years against terrorists or states. Hence, it wouldn't shock me to learn that the Shayetet did such a thing when the vessels were still in Iran, because as we've seen already, Israel operates in Iran itself according to foreign reports."
Eldar added it was important to note that attached a mine to a vessel at sea is a far more complex mission that perhaps requires more advanced technological tools. "But just being able to hit ships is not complicated," he said.
Assaf Golan , Neta Bar and News Agencies
Source: https://www.israelhayom.com/2021/03/14/at-any-given-moment-israel-knows-the-location-of-every-ship-on-the-globe/
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