Persian Gulf mystery: Supertanker 'Riah' cuts transponder near Iran, vanishes from radar - no emergency signal sent

RT
Tue, 16 Jul 2019 18:17 UTC

© Agence France-Presse

The Grace 1 supertanker

Sailing through the Strait of Hormuz, an Emirates-based oil tanker has vanished (from the radar). With the strait a flashpoint for US-Iran tensions, is Tehran to blame?

The Panamanian-flagged oil tanker Riah usually transits oil from Dubai and Sharjah to Fujairah, a trip of just under 200 nautical miles that takes a tanker like this just over a day and a half at sea. it reported its position off the coast of Dubai on July 7.

However, while passing through the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday night, the vessel's tracking signal abruptly turned off just before midnight, after it deviated from its course and pointed towards the Iranian coast. According to marine tracking data, the signal has not been turned on again since, and the ship has essentially vanished.

© Information from MarineTraffic.com and VesselFinder.com

A graphic shows the Riah's route and last known positions.

So what happened? With US-Iranian tensions bubbling, and Iran blamed for several attacks on oil tankers near the strait in recent months, attention turned to the Islamic Republic. Israeli media picked up the story on Tuesday, and framed it as another development in the ongoing saga, highlighting Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's vow on Tuesday to respond to Britain's seizure of an Iranian tanker near Gibraltar earlier this month.

A spokesman for the shipping company that owns the Riah - Sharjah-based Mouj-al-Bahar General Trading - told TradeWinds that the ship had been "hijacked" by Iranian authorities. CNN reported that the US intelligence community "increasingly believes" the tanker was forced into Iranian waters by the naval wing of Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, but has not revealed its sources.

However, Tehran has not acknowledged the disappearance of the Riah, even to deny the alleged 'hijacking.' Nor has the US Fifth Fleet, which patrols the region and has seen its presence bolstered by B-52 bombers and thousands of troops in recent months.

Foreign provocation is another explanation that will likely be thrown around. In light of recent news, the idea that Iran would interdict a tanker is one that will be taken seriously, but the United States has had ample opportunity to take military action against Iran recently.

President Donald Trump said that he was "cocked and loaded" to strike Iran last month after Tehran downed an American spy drone it said was flying in its airspace, but ultimately called off the attack. In short, if either side wished for war, another provocation would likely be unnecessary.

With provocation unlikely and Iranian responsibility as yet unknown, there are other reasons why a ship might simply vanish. Israeli website TankerTrackers.com compiles reports of ships it believes are switching off their trackers to dock in Iranian ports and load up on oil, in violation of American sanctions. The site reported a Chinese vessel - the Sino Energy 1 - disappearing late last month near Iran, before reappearing fully loaded and heading the opposite direction six days later. It is currently passing Singapore en route back to China.

However, an Emirates-based ship is extremely unlikely to be trading oil with Iran, given the Emirates' political differences with Tehran and close alliance with Saudi Arabia, the world's second-largest oil producer and largest exporter.

Further complicating matters, an Emirati security official told local media that "the tanker in question is neither UAE owned nor operated, does not carry Emirati personnel, and did not emit a distress call. We are monitoring the situation."

With conflicting reports circulating and nothing concrete yet, the whereabouts of the Riah is as opaque as the crude oil it carries.

Comment: Sputnik adds:

Oil tanker Riah, which, according to vessel location tracking websites, stopped transmitting signals on its location in the early hours of 14 July, didn't issue any emergency signals, a highly-profile Emirate official told Al-Arabiya on Tuesday.

"The oil tanker is not owned, and nor is used by the United Arab Emirates, it hasn't trasmitted any SOS signals," the speaker told the television channel, busting reports that the vessel had changed its course and got lost in the Strait of Hormuz off the Iranian coast.

Earlier in the day, an unnamed US defense official told The Associated Press that America "has suspicions" that Iran seized an oil tanker based in the UAE.

The 190-foot MT Riah, carrying the flag of Panama, was last mapped in the vicinity of Iran, near the island of Qeshm, which hosts a local Revolutionary Guard base, according to Haaretz.

According to Dr Ali Reza Rezahah, expert on US international politics, political observer and columnist for the Iranian Supreme Leader's Analytical and expert centre, it is necessary to understand where and where from the tanker was moving, why it disappeared and where it ended up.

"Another issue is that the vessel reportedly belongs to the UK, but has a flag of Panama and carried cargo for the Emirates. If the ship is really an Emirate one, why did they state that they have nothing to do with it?"

The analyst went on to say that whatever happens in the Strait of Hormuz, Americans always point a finger at Iran's "complicity," use Photoshop and photo editing.

Rezahah is certain the US is striving to make the Strait of Hormuz, which many lead to the creation of an anti-Iranian international coalition. "Unfortunately, they are creating such incidents themselves, in a bid to frighten Iran, but at the same time they are unable to ground not a single instance of the Islamic Republic having anything to do with the attacks."

Almost as an afterthought, the Times of Israel mentions Iran's offer to put ballistic missiles up for negotiation:

Meanwhile, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif suggested for the first time that the Islamic Republic's ballistic missile program could be up for negotiations with the US, a possible opening for talks as tensions remain high between Tehran and Washington.

Zarif offered an initially high price for such negotiations — the halt of American arms sales to both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two key U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf.

But the fact that he mentioned it at all potentially represents a change in policy. The country's ballistic missile program remains under control of the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which answers only to Khamenei.

Zarif brought up the ballistic missile offer during an interview with NBC News that aired Monday night as he's in New York for meetings at the United Nations. He mentioned the UAE spending $22 billion and Saudi Arabia spending $67 billion on weapons last year, many of them American-made, while Iran spent only $16 billion in comparison.

"These are American weaponry that is going into our region, making our region ready to explode," Zarif said. "So if they want to talk about our missiles, they need first to stop selling all these weapons, including missiles, to our region."

Trump during his time in the White House has pointed to arms sales to the Mideast as important to the American economy, so it remains unclear how he'd react to cutting into those purchases.

Zarif's comments marked the first time an Iranian official has mentioned even the possibility of talks on the Iranian missiles.

Since its 1979 Islamic Revolution and the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran has faced a variety of economic sanctions. That has cut into Iran's ability to buy advanced weaponry abroad. While Gulf Arab nations have purchased advanced fighter jets, Iran still relies on pre-1979 US fighter jets, as well as other aging Soviet MiGs and other planes.

Facing that shortfall, Iran instead invested heavily into its ballistic missile program. That's both due to sanctions and the memory of the missile attacks launched by Saddam Hussein during Iran's bloody 1980s war with Iraq.

Khamenei reportedly has restricted the range of ballistic missiles manufactured in Iran to 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles).

While that keeps Europe out of range, it means the Iranian missiles can hit much of the Middle East, including Israel and American military bases in the region.

In pulling out of the deal, Trump in part blamed the accord not touching on Iran's ballistic missile program. The U.S. fears Iran could use its missile technology and space program to build nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles, something Tehran denies it wants to do.