A ship anchored off the United Arab Emirates was seized on Thursday and taken toward Iran, the latest flashpoint in a sea lane already rattled by attacks, fire and a widening regional war. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said it received reports that the ship was taken by unauthorized personnel while it was anchored 38 nautical miles, or 70 kilometers, northeast of the UAE port of Fujairah.
The British military said the vessel was heading toward Iranian waters. The maritime center did not name the ship and said it was investigating.
The seizure came as another cargo vessel, the Indian-flagged Haji Ali, sank off the coast of Oman after an attack that sparked a fire aboard the ship while it was en route from Somalia to Sharjah on Wednesday. All 14 Indian crew members were rescued by Oman’s coast guard and were safe, and India’s foreign ministry called the incident unacceptable while condemning continued attacks on commercial shipping and civilian mariners.
The twin incidents put fresh pressure on a waterway that carries a huge share of the world’s oil and has become one of the most combustible fronts in the wider conflict. Before the war, about one fifth of the world’s oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz. The turmoil there has been a sticking point for weeks in talks between the United States and Iran to end the conflict, while Tehran has repeatedly claimed control over the passage. During the war, U.S. forces fired on and disabled Iranian oil tankers they said were trying to breach a blockade of Iran’s ports last week.
The timing also pointed to a rare practical accommodation even as tensions deepened. Iranian semiofficial news agencies reported that Chinese ships began passing through the strait Wednesday night under new Iranian protocols after Tehran agreed to facilitate the passage of several Chinese vessels following requests from China’s foreign minister and Beijing’s ambassador to Iran. The ships began their passage as Trump arrived in China.
For Gulf shippers, the message was blunt: even as some traffic is being managed through new arrangements, the route remains exposed to sudden disruption. That matters far beyond Iran and the UAE, because any interruption in the Strait of Hormuz can ripple through global energy markets within hours, and the next move from either side could decide whether Thursday’s seizure is an isolated act or another step toward a broader shutdown of the lane.
