Image: Barry Anderson
Faizel Patel – 04/08/2021
The British navy says a group of armed gunmen who boarded and apparently captured a Panama-flagged vessel, have now left the ship.
It is understood the group boarded the ship in the Arabian Sea on Tuesday in an area, which leads to the Strait of Hormuz, a channel where around 20% of the world’s sea-borne oil gets exported.
The circumstances surrounding the seizure of the Asphalt Princess are sketchy, but the incident has raised concerns of an escalation between the West and Iran.
Speaking to Radio Islam, founder and editor of EA WorldView Scott Lucas says at the time of the so-called hijacking, four other ships also reported, “having lost control.”
“Overnight this one ship the Asphalt Princess was being taken towards Iran. Reports were coming out from British Maritime sources that it was an Iranian linked group, possibly the Iranian armed forces that were detaining the ship. Now this morning, the gunmen left the ship and it began to reverse course to move back towards Oman.”
Lucas says there are likely two scenarios for the hijacking of the Asphalt Princess
“Some faction, unknown gunmen for some reason stopped the worlds shipping for several hours. The second scenario is yes this was the Iranian military, the revolutionary guards who tried but failed to detain the ship.”
Lucas says there is a war on shipping.
“Indeed a hybrid war between Israel and Iran. Israel for more than a decade assassinated Iranian nuclear scientist, attack Iranian nuclear facilities, carried out cyber operations. Israel has attacked Iranian ships including those taking oil to Syria, so Iran is striking back by attacking shipping including ships that are linked to Israel for example one last Thursday called the Mercer Street in a drone attack in which two crew were killed.”
Lucas also touched on news about the inauguration of Iran’s new President Ebrahim Raisi; the Coronavirus Delta variant and vaccine hesitancy; the political crisis in Tunisia, the Belarusian athlete Krystina Timanovskaya who refused to go home after the Olympics in Tokyo and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Listen to the World View with Scott Lucas
0 Comments