Report: The Revolutionary Guards attacked a cargo ship near the Strait of Hormuz

Today (Thursday), Iran’s Revolutionary Guards attacked a Singaporean-flagged cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz, two senior American officials told the Wall Street Journal. According to the British maritime trade body UKMTO, the attack caused damage to the ship’s command bridge, but no casualties were reported.

The attack took place near the coast of Oman, hours after the Revolutionary Guards navy warned ships not to use routes in the strait not approved by the Iranian regime. According to the report, the incident poses the first challenge to the agreement signed last week between the United States and Iran, which was designed to end the fighting and reopen the vital shipping lane.

The 60-day agreement to open the Strait of Hormuz requires Iran to make an effort to ensure the safe passage of commercial vessels, in exchange for the lifting of the American blockade on Iranian ports. As part of the understandings, according to the report, the United States this week waived sanctions regarding the sale of Iranian oil, allowing Tehran to sell oil in dollars for the first time in decades.

Two days before the attack, the International Shipping Organization, IMO, announced that it was coordinating an evacuation route for hundreds of ships still stuck in the Persian Gulf. The operation was planned to be carried out in cooperation with Iran, Oman, other coastal countries and the USA.

But hours after the attack, the organization, a body of the United Nations, announced that the evacuation operation had been suspended. The IMO Secretary General said that the decision was aimed at re-verifying that the safety guarantees are still in effect for the ships on the evacuation list and for other vessels in the area. He added that the ship that was attacked did not sail as part of the organization’s evacuation mechanism.

According to the report, even before the attack, the Revolutionary Guards warned that crossing the route marked by the IMO is “completely unacceptable and dangerous”, and called on all vessels to coordinate the crossing with Iran.