The US military has released video footage it says shows an Iranian military patrol boat approach one of two tankers attacked in the Gulf of Oman, to support the Trump administration’s claims that Iran was responsible.
The blurry black and white footage, taken from the air, shows a small military boat alongside the Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous, and someone standing up on the prow of the boat to remove an object from the tanker’s hull. The small boat then pulls away from the tanker.
US officials were quoted as saying the boat was an Iranian Revolutionary Guard patrol boat approaching the tanker after it was attacked on Thursday, and the object removed was an unexploded limpet mine. It was unclear whether it was being alleged the Iranian sailors were detaching the mine in order to remove evidence.
Thursday’s attacks ratcheted up tension between the US and Iran, which are locked in a volatile standoff after Washington imposed crippling economic sanctions on Tehran in an attempt to force the renegotiation of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
The incidents also added to security fears over oil tankers travelling through the strait of Hormuz – a chokepoint for the global oil and gas trade – and appeared to have snuffed out a Japanese-led mediation effort between Tehran and Washington.
The US military also released a photo it claimed showed a mine on the side of the Kokuka Courageous and some damage to the hull.
The operator of the tanker suggested the vessel was struck by a missile. The crew saw “flying objects” just before it came under attack, according to Yutaka Katada, the president of the Tokyo-based owner Kokuka Sangyo.
The vessel’s crew had spotted an Iranian naval ship nearby, he added, but did not say whether that was before or after the attack, which damaged the tanker’s starboard side.
Earlier the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said the US believed blasts on the two tankers were caused by the Iranian military “based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation”. He also claimed the attacks had such a high degree of sophistication they could not have been carried out by a proxy.
Pompeo took no questions after making his allegations. He said Iran had been responsible for a previous wave of attacks on tankers last month, but the official investigation into those incidents did not determine who had been responsible. He also claimed a 31 May car bomb in Afghanistan that killed Afghan civilians and wounded four US soldiers, had been carried out by Iran. The attack had been claimed by the Taliban.
