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Iran has struck a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz, forcing the UN to pause its evacuation of stranded sailors and casting doubt on the reopening of the waterway.
Getting into it: The Singapore-flagged container ship Ever Lovely was hit on its starboard side by a projectile off the coast of Oman on Thursday, damaging its bridge, though no injuries or environmental harm were reported. A US official told CNN and the AP the vessel was struck by a drone flown by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, and though Tehran has stayed quiet on whether it was behind the hit, the strike came only hours after the Guard put out word that ships would get safe passage only on routes Iran picks.
With that attack, the UN’s International Maritime Organization pulled the plug on an effort to move hundreds of ships and over 11,000 sailors out of the Gulf, where they’ve been stuck since the fighting started. IMO chief Arsenio Dominguez, noting the damaged ship was not part of the evacuation, said the plan would be paused “until further clarity is obtained” because “the safety of the seafarers remains paramount.”
Iran’s new Persian Gulf Strait Authority warned that anyone using “unauthorized routes” does so at their own risk, and the Guard called a UN-backed route along Oman’s coast “unacceptable and completely dangerous,” vowing that “violators will be dealt with.”
The attack also landed as Secretary of State Marco Rubio toured the Gulf to sell the deal, drawing a hard line on tolls. “No country on Earth has a right to charge for the use of international waterways,” he said in Bahrain, where Gulf ministers backed him by rejecting “any tolls, fees, or attempts to assert control over the Strait.” Iran disputes that the strait is international waters and has floated charging “service fees” rather than tolls, which Rubio dismissed as “a game of semantics.”
