Iran seizes foreign oil tanker with 12 crew, state media says

www.cnn.com...

This is a weird one. Iran seized a ship in the straight of Hormuz. But it's still not known with certainty which ship was seized or where the crew is from. And it's curious that someone had smuggled all that fuelout of Iran to the ship and for what reasons.

Time will tell.

Iran has seized an oil tanker it claimed was carrying 1 million liters of "smuggled fuel," state news agency Press TV said on Thursday.
The semi-official Fars news agency said Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces ambushed the tanker, carrying 12 people on board, on Sunday.
The IRGC said it had initially responded to distress calls from a ship on Sunday but when they searched it, they discovered it was a smuggling operation, according to Iranian state media.

Ive been following this since rumors started. Is hasn't ever added up to me, and it gets more peculiar as time goes on.

Inside job? Western FF? OPEC FF? Iranian FF?

Something stinks here......

Ah, the Iranians are just trying to provoke a reaction having had their sanctions-busting tanker seized by the Brits. They failed to seize a British flagged tanker as the Royal Navy told them to "so off", so they've taken what is now believed to be a Panamanian-flagged tanker.

Iran is out-of-order and so very predictable. Soon they will make a misjudgement and someone is going to kick back and sink the Iranian navy.

a reply to: grey580

Is this the same one as the UAE ship from the other day ago?

a reply to: Mach2

when you have to present a multiple choice of " whos false flag it was "

it was not a false fkag - do you even know what the term means ?? or is it just a buzzword you like ??

I have to admit I felt kind of guilty when I read this on the news (it made me chuckle a lot), the Tanker which is registered in Panama as are many ship's since it is a registration of convenience used by many ship's regardless of whom they are really owned by and which country is there real home is most probably one of there own, this is backed up somewhat by the fact that it was supposedly Smuggling oil FROM Iran to foreign buyers - not all that impossible but I am certain the Iranian authority's would have noticed that a long time ago.

So my take on it is this, this is a staged action to try to make themselves out to be innocent and perhaps a very clever ploy to let them get out of the little debacle they recently got themselves into with there tanker trying to slip past Gibralter with a cargo of crude and a destination of Syria.

Most likely it is a way of wiping egg off there faces and creating just enough wrangle room to claim they were innocent of the activity of the there other seized tanker and the use of an aging small panama registered tramp was probably part of this game.

Still both funny and kind of canny.

The other registration of convenience and once perhaps just as popular as Panama but not so much these day's was Liberia which is still a registration of convenience but not so much as in the past.
Registering in these nations is done for a number of reason's but tax is one of the big one's.

a reply to: grey580

I just hope the usa stays out of this.

None of our business. Let whomever owns the tanker deal with it.

a reply to: grey580

when the iranians themselves dont know if :

A-they ambushed her

or

B - responeded to a distress call

its clear they are making it up as they go

just to clarify - the RIAH is of a size that mandates its comms suite and electronics - IF it did make a distress - why did no one else in the area hear it ?

originally posted by: ignorant_ape
a reply to: Mach2

when you have to present a multiple choice of " whos false flag it was "

it was not a false fkag - do you even know what the term means ?? or is it just a buzzword you like ??

A false flag is a covert operation designed to deceive; the deception creates the appearance of a particular party, group, or nation being responsible for some activity, disguising the actual source of responsibility

Wikipedia

Yes, I do. Do you?

Anyway "FF" is a well known abbreviation for the band "Foo Fighters". You know, David Grohl? One of the top acts of the past couple decades?

My god man!!! Get a clue!!!

a reply to: Mach2

Are you two going on about "Flags of convenience" by any chance.
Here is a wicki article on it, before the use of FALSE FLAG in it's current use as a term it used to be used in the nautical sense either to describe ship's flying flags of other country's and later to describe ship's owned and operated in one country but registered in another.
en.wikipedia.org...
Before the modern use of the word as in FALSE FLAG OPERATION'S (which have a very long history and a famous one being the use of prisoners dressed in Polish army uniforms by the Nazi's to try to make it look like Poland had attacked them first) it was as I say used originally almost exclusively to describe ship's using flags of other nation's than the one's they were actually owned by.

If that is not the point you two are debating then forgive my interjection.

Is there other smuggling going on other than out of Iran due to sanctions?

I am starting to think the Iranians are playing the most stupid hand possible in the game.

a reply to: roadgravel

THERE always will be, were sanctions are in place the elite actually make huge profit's, they strangle one source of oil and it helps to increase the price and value of other sources of oil and at the same time smugglers get rich very quick out of it.

So yes definitely (and I would not be surprised to learn that quite a few very important US citizens' are making a killing out of it as well).

a reply to: LABTECH767

I wasn't really debating anything. I'm not even sure why ignorant_ape responded the way he did. I posted the contemporary definition that I was using. It seemed pretty straight forward.

As to your explaination of the terms origin, yes I did know that. I appreciate it, though, i hadn't considered that someone may be reading it in an historical sense.

a reply to: loam

Article said UAE claims it's not theirs.

a reply to: LABTECH767

So you are saying someone is stealing Iranian oil? If so then this seizure is OK. But I would think Iran would be able to find the persons doing it.

a reply to: ignorant_ape

Yes. It's a very odd story. Are they making up that they seized a ship so they look tough?

I don't know.

a reply to: grey580

Charles Lister @Charles_Lister NEW - U.S. Navy USS Boxer shot down an #Iran drone over the Straits of #Hormuz today, after issuing multiple warnings to retreat.

twitter.com...

Drone for drone. Things are escalating..conflict seems inevitable these days.

originally posted by: grey580
a reply to: ignorant_ape

Yes. It's a very odd story. Are they making up that they seized a ship so they look tough?

I don't know.

There, apparently, was an actual ship. It turned off it's location beacon as it approached Iranian waters, which leads me to believe it was under control of someone, rather than an accidental straying off course.

Very odd, as we all know, the US most likely has an ORION, or similar, with eyes on the Straight of Hormuz.

a reply to: LABTECH767

I think you are spot on in your assesment. They are pissed at the missed trade on what they consider their,doorstep and probably think is rightfully theirs. They want a conflict they can justify as putting them in the right. They want to hit back and stop all that trade because well most of it is western trade. The Iranian oil is state owned if I am not mistaken so losing any would be hard to believe without them noticing so long as it takes to get on a ship and leave with it.

originally posted by: RickyD
a reply to: LABTECH767

I think you are spot on in your assesment. They are pissed at the missed trade on what they consider their,doorstep and probably think is rightfully theirs. They want a conflict they can justify as putting them in the right. They want to hit back and stop all that trade because well most of it is western trade. The Iranian oil is state owned if I am not mistaken so losing any would be hard to believe without them noticing so long as it takes to get on a ship and leave with it.

But it isn't only western trade. Many oil producing countries use the straight. Many times the tankers and the oil in them are not owned by the same entity.

They are going to end up pissing enough ppl off that there will be a coalition of states on board with the idea of rectifying the situation.

When that happens, the US and Britain will ramrod a resolution through the UN. Airstrikes will commence, and Iran will find it's defenses rendered useless, and its nuclear program relegated to a smoking pile of rubble.

No ground troops. No occupation forces.