TEHRAN, March 5 — Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Thursday it had hit a U.S. oil tanker north of the Gulf with missiles, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.
The American tanker was targeted by the IRGC’s navy early Thursday and was reported to be burning, it said. According to Fars, the IRGC had earlier announced that, based on international rules and resolutions, Iran has full authority over vessel movements in the Strait of Hormuz during wartime, and all must comply.
It added that Iran had also warned that commercial and military vessels belonging to the United States, Israel, European states and their supporters would not be allowed to pass through the strait.
The development came as on Wednesday, the U.S. military sank Iran’s IRIS Dena frigate off the coast of Sri Lanka in international waters, killing over 80 of its 130 crew members.
Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said Thursday on social media that “the U.S. has perpetrated an atrocity at sea, 2,000 miles away from Iran’s shores,” adding that Washington will “come to bitterly regret the precedent it has set.” (Namibia Daily News / Xinhua)
