Iran fuel tanker attacked off Syria

An Iranian tanker was attacked off Syria’s coast Saturday sparking a fire, in the first assault of its kind since the war started a decade ago, a war monitor said.

It was not clear who carried out the attack which caused no casualties, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

“We don’t know if this was an Israeli attack,” Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP of Saturday’s assault.

“The Iranian tanker came from Iran and was not far from Banias port,” he added.

It was not clear either if a drone or a missile was used in the attack, the Observatory said.

In a report published last month that cited US and Middle East officials, the Wall Street Journal said Israel had targeted at least a dozen vessels bound for Syria and mostly carrying Iranian oil since late 2019.

The Banias oil refinery is located in the regime-controlled coastal province of Tartus.

“It’s the first such attack on an oil tanker, but the Banias terminal has been targeted in the past,” Abdel Rahman said.

Early last year, Damascus said divers had planted explosives on offshore pipelines of the Banias refinery but the damage had not halted operations.