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The Pentagon is seen from the air on March 3, 2022.
CNN –
A chemical tanker operating in the Indian Ocean was hit by an Iranian attack drone on Saturday, a US Defense Department official said. It was the seventh Iranian attack on merchant shipping since 2021.
“The motor vessel CHEM PLUTO, a Liberia-flagged, Japanese-owned and Dutch-operated chemical tanker, was struck today at approximately 10 a.m. local time (6 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time) in the Indian Ocean, 200 nautical miles from the coast.” India was targeted by a unilateral attack drone fired from Iran,” the official said in a statement.
A disposable attack drone is designed to hit its target rather than return to its origin. “There were no injuries and a fire on board the tanker was extinguished,” the defense official said.
“No U.S. Navy ships were in the area,” the statement said, adding that Naval Forces Central Command was communicating with the struck ship.
According to the Indian Coast Guard, 20 Indian crew members and one Vietnamese were on board at the time of the attack. However, it added that no injuries were reported.
It said it dispatched a patrol ship and a maritime surveillance aircraft after communications were established with the ship.
After assessing the damage and carrying out repairs to its power generation systems, the vessel Chem Pluto, accompanied by the patrol vessel, set off for Mumbai, the Coast Guard said.
The ship left Saudi Arabia on December 19 and was scheduled to arrive in India's southwestern port city of Mangalore on December 25.
The attack in the Indian Ocean comes as Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have carried out more than 100 attacks in the past four weeks against about a dozen commercial and commercial vessels transiting the Red Sea, CNN previously reported .
The US Central Command reported further incidents of this kind in a statement on social media on Saturday. A crude oil tanker was hit by a “unilateral attack drone” on Saturday. There were no injuries, central command said. A separate chemical tanker operating in the southern Red Sea reported a “near miss” by a disposable drone on Saturday, the command said.
Additionally, two “anti-ship ballistic missiles” were fired from Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen into the southern Red Sea but did not hit any ships, the statement said, and the Navy destroyer USS Laboon had four Drones were shot down on the way there.
While there have been repeated attacks from Yemen, Saturday's attack in the Indian Ocean by a drone that the US said came from Iran could mark a new escalation in tensions.
The US released newly declassified intelligence on Friday that suggested Iran was “heavily involved in planning operations against merchant ships in the Red Sea,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson told CNN.
The recently declassified intelligence suggests that “Iranian support during the Gaza crisis enabled the Houthis to launch attacks against Israel and maritime targets, although Iran often gave operational decision-making authority to the Houthis,” Watson said.
The US this week launched Operation Prosperity Guardian, a maritime coalition aimed at increasing security in the southern Red Sea. So far, more than 20 nations have joined the initiative, the Pentagon said Thursday.