DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – An Israeli cargo ship that suffered a mysterious explosion in the Gulf of Oman arrived at the port of Dubai for repairs on Sunday, days after the explosion that rekindled safety concerns on Middle East waterways in amid increased tensions with Iran.
Associated Press journalists saw the burly Israeli-owned MV Helios Ray sitting on dry docks in Port Rashid, Dubai. Although the crew was unharmed in the explosion, the ship suffered two holes on the port side and two on the starboard side just above the waterline, according to American defense officials.
It is not yet clear what caused the explosion, but the incident comes amid a sharp increase in tension between the US and Iran over the outcome of the 2015 nuclear deal. Iran has sought to pressure President Joe Biden’s government to provide relief to the sanctions it received under the agreement with world powers that former President Donald Trump abandoned.
From the coast, AP journalists could not immediately see the damage to the ship. The pier blocked the view from the starboard side of the ship to the waterline and the port side could only be seen from a distance. The ship was anchored next to Dubai’s famous floating hotel, Queen Elizabeth 2. An Emirati coast guard ship was seen sailing behind the ship, with Dubai police and Emirati armed forces vehicles stationed nearby.
Emirati officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the berthing of ships in the country.
Friday’s explosion on the ship, a roll-on and roll-off cargo ship with the Bahamas flag, recalled a series of attacks on foreign tankers in 2019 that the U.S. Navy attributed to Iran. Tehran denied any role in the alleged attacks. , which took place near the Strait of Hormuz, an oil bottleneck.
Israeli ambassador to the United States and the UN, Gilad Erdan, told Israeli Army Radio on Sunday that “it was no secret that the Iranians are trying to harm Israeli targets”, claiming that the explosion on the ship carried the marks of previous Iranian attacks. .
Meanwhile, on Sunday, Yemen’s Houthi rebels, supported by Iran, took responsibility for launching a ballistic missile and nine bomb-loaded drones in “sensitive places” in Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh, the night before. The group’s military spokesman, Yahia Sarei, added that another six explosive drones were aimed at “military positions” in the southwestern cities of Abha and Khamis Mushait. The Saudi interception of the missile triggered an apparent explosion over Riyadh that scared residents and scattered the projectile’s debris, without causing casualties.
Helios Ray unloaded cars at various ports in the Persian Gulf before leaving the Middle East for Singapore. The explosion occurred just as the ship left Saudi Arabia’s Dammam port in the Gulf of Oman, forcing it to head to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for inspection.
Iranian authorities have not publicly commented on the ship. The country’s radical Kayhan newspaper, whose editor-in-chief was appointed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, claimed that Helios Ray was “possibly” on a “espionage” mission in the region, without offering any evidence to support the claim. Sunday’s report speculated that the ship may have been “trapped in an ambush by a branch of the resistance axis”, referring to Iranian representatives in the region.
Iran has also blamed Israel for a recent series of attacks, including a mysterious explosion last summer that destroyed an advanced centrifuge assembly plant at its Natanz nuclear facility and the death of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a leading Iranian scientist who founded the Islamic Republic’s military nuclear program two decades ago.
Iran’s repeated pledges to avenge Fakhrizadeh’s death have raised alarms in Israel, especially as the Gulf sees an increase in Israeli traffic following the normalization of the country’s agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
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Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell and Malak Harb in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Ilan Ben Zion in Jerusalem and Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.