Tanker Hit Off Oman: Third Ship Struck Near Limah in 3 Days

A tanker has been struck by two unidentified projectiles about 14 nautical miles northeast of Limah, on the eastern coast of Oman’s Musandam Peninsula, making it the third merchant ship hit in the same stretch of water in three days. The UK Maritime Trade Operations centre, which is run by the Royal Navy, reported on November 3 that the vessel’s company security officer had confirmed both projectiles struck the engine room, with no casualties and no environmental damage reported. The tanker has not been named, and no state or group has claimed the attack. The strikes highlight how the waters off Limah, where outbound traffic leaves the Strait of Hormuz for the Gulf of Oman, have become one of the most frequently targeted points on the southern route that U.S. forces urge shipping to use.

The attack followed the killing of an Indian sailor on November 2, when the India-flagged cargo vessel MSV Al Jusufi, carrying 14 Indian seafarers, was hit off Limah by what India’s Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal described as an unidentified aerial object. Thirteen crew members evacuated the vessel and were rescued by the Omani Coast Guard, while the dead sailor was identified as Gandhar Nahim Ajij, a native of Gujarat. On the evening of November 1 the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre had reported that an unknown projectile holed the starboard side of another vessel about nine nautical miles northeast of Limah, with its crew safe. All three ships were reported struck by projectiles or an aerial object rather than by mines, which sets them apart from the string of mine claims made by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps since mid-October, none of which has named a vessel.

Limah is far from a new danger point, with an unknown projectile having started a fire on a tanker’s port side about eight nautical miles east of the town on July 7, and another tanker having been struck in the engine room 11 nautical miles to the northeast on August 1. On October 22 an outbound tanker was hit seven nautical miles northeast of Limah, although it was still able to continue its voyage. The latest strikes come less than a week after a tanker was set ablaze by limpet mines off Khasab, farther north on the same peninsula, on October 29, and within days of the U.S. strikes on Qeshm Island on November 2, which American officials described as a response to Iranian surface to air missile fire at U.S. assets.

No government has attributed the November attacks off Limah, while Iran’s armed forces maintain that ships may cross the strait only on a route they approve and in coordination with them, and Iran’s navy warned on October 30 that the southern route near the Omani coast is mined. The pressure on that route is considerable given how little room shipping has: the strait is about 21 nautical miles wide at its narrowest, between Iran’s Larak Island and the Quoin islands off Musandam, and its two shipping lanes are each only about two nautical miles wide. Three or four ships a day were getting through in early November, against about 78 a day before the war began on February 28.