British officials said Friday that the Iranian military is likely responsible for damaging two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, supporting the assessment of the Trump administration.
“It is almost certain that a branch of the Iranian military — the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — attacked the two tankers on 13 June,” a bulletin from the British government said. “No other state or non-state actor could plausibly have been responsible.”
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That message was circulated Friday afternoon, as Iranian officials accused President Trump’s administration of trying to frame the regime for the attack. The British conclusion corroborated a series of releases from the Defense Department, which released video of an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps vessel removing a magnetic mine from one of the damaged tankers.
“There is recent precedent for attacks by Iran against oil tankers,” the U.K. statement continued, citing an investigation led by the United Arab Emirates into attacks on four other oil tankers last month. “We are confident that Iran bears responsibility for that attack.”
Iranian diplomats accused the U.S. of staging a “false flag” attack on the tankers in order to embarrass the regime during Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe’s visit to Tehran.
“While Japan’s prime minister is meeting with the number one figure of the Islamic Republic of Iran to reduce tensions, which clandestine hands seek to undermine these efforts in the region and who benefit from it?” an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said, according to state-run media.
An official at the Japanese company that owns one of the tankers maintained that the explosion was caused by “flying objects,” in an apparent contradiction of U.S. military findings.
“Our crew said that the ship was attacked by a flying object,” Kokuka Sangyo president Yutaka Katada said Friday. “I do not think there was a time bomb or an object attached to the side of the ship.”
The crew of the Japanese tanker “abandoned their ship after discovering a probable unexploded limpet mine on their hull following an initial explosion,” according to a Pentagon timeline released Thursday night. Defense Department officials also released two color photos of the tanker, depicting the apparent mine, and a video that appears to show an Iranian patrol boat approaching the damaged vessel and removing the mine.
“The U.S. and the international community stand ready to defend our interests, including the freedom of navigation,” Capt. Bill Urban, lead spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said Thursday. “The United States has no interest in engaging in a new conflict in the Middle East. However, we will defend our interests.”
