Israel is highly likely to have been behind the explosion onboard the container ship ‘Shahr e Kord’ last week, according to an Iranian investigator quoted by Iranian media.
The Shahr e Kord was operating in the Eastern Mediterranean on Friday, when it suferred a small fire caused by an explosive object, off Haifa, Israel. There were no injuries, Iran said on Friday.
Two maritime security sources cited by Reuters said initial indications suggested the ship was intentionally targeted by an unknown source.
Considering the geographical location and the way the ship was targeted, one of the strong possibilities is that this terrorist operation was carried out by the Zionist regime (Israel),
…an unnamed member of the Iranian team investigating the incident was quoted as saying by semi-official Nournews.
During a webinar on Saturday, Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz declined to comment directly about the incident, but he said Iran regularly sent weapons to its proxies in the region. Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said reports confirmed an act of sabotage in violation of international law.
The Iranian investigator said explosive projectiles could have been fired from an aerial vehicle, hitting containers on the ship’s deck.
Iran’s state-run shipping company IRISL said it would take legal action to identify the perpetrators of the attack.
The incident came two weeks after an explosion onboard the Israeli car carrier ‘MV HELIOS RAY’ while in the Gulf of Oman. The cause was not immediately clear, although Israel accused Iran of being behind the explosion, a charge the Islamic Republic denied.
