Iran Guards say they confiscated British tanker in Strait of Hormuz
Tehran: Iran's Revolutionary Guards announced Friday they had confiscated a British tanker in the strategic Strait of Hormuz for breaking "international maritime rules".
The Stena Impero tanker "was confiscated by the Revolutionary Guards at the request of Hormozgan Ports and Maritime Organisation when passing through the strait of Hormuz, for failing to respect international maritime rules," the Guards' official website Sepahnews announced.
The tanker "was led to the shore and handed over to the organisation to go through the legal procedure and required investigations," it said.
Tanker tracking service Marine Traffic showed that the UK-flagged, Swedish-owned Stena Impero last signalled its location near the Island of Larak in the highly sensitive waterway at 9:00 PM local time.
The UK is "urgently seeking further information and assessing the situation following reports of an incident in the Gulf," a British government spokesperson said.
The announcement came just hours after Gibraltar's Supreme Court announced it would extend by 30 days the detention of an Iranian tanker seized two weeks ago on allegations that it was headed to Syria in violation of sanctions.
British authorities' detention of the Grace 1 supertanker sparked outrage in Tehran, which accused London of doing the bidding of the Washington in action that is "tantamount to maritime banditry".
On Tuesday, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, accused the "vicious British" of "piracy" and vowed retaliation.
The Guards also seized another "foreign tanker" on Thursday, believed to be the Panamanian-flagged vessel Riah and its crew, and accused the ship of smuggling Iranian fuel.
Thursday's incident, amid soaring tensions between Iran on one side and the US and its allies on the other, is the latest in a series of events that have raised fears of a regional war in the Gulf.
President Donald Trump insisted Friday that the American military had downed an Iranian drone that was threatening a US naval vessel in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, which Tehran denied.
On Thursday, Trump said the USS Boxer had downed an Iranian drone that threatened the amphibious assault ship as it was entering the Strait.
The alleged incident came after Iran shot down a US drone last month, nearly sparking retaliatory strikes. The Strait of Hormuz is the conduit for nearly a third of the world's crude oil.
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Salah-less Liverpool plays Inter in Champions League. Barcelona, Bayern, Chelsea all in action
London (AP): After leaving Mohamed Salah at home, Liverpool needs to show it can win without the Egyptian forward as Arne Slot's team takes on Inter Milan in the Champions League on Tuesday.
On a night when Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Chelsea and Tottenham are all in action, the focus is on Liverpool after Salah said Saturday it “seems like the club has thrown me under the bus.” Liverpool's response was to leave him out of the squad for its trip to Italy.
Liverpool's poor recent form boosts Inter's chances of picking up a fifth win in six games. A win for 13th-place Liverpool would put Slot's team back into the hunt for the top eight seedings for the knockout stages.
After losing its last Champions League game 3-0 to Chelsea, Barcelona aims to recover at home to struggling Eintracht Frankfurt. It will have to do without defender Ronald Araujo, who is suspended after his red card against Chelsea and has also been unavailable for personal reasons.
Seventh-place Chelsea is unbeaten in four Champions League games and visits Atalanta aiming to strengthen its hold on a top-eight spot offering direct entry to the round of 16. Bayern can earn its fifth win of the league stage by beating Sporting Lisbon in an early kickoff.
Tottenham, which lost 5-3 to Paris Saint-Germain last time out, has an easier task against Czech team Slavia Prague. Atletico Madrid visits PSV Eindhoven, Monaco hosts Galatasaray and Union Saint-Gilloise plays Marseille.
One game starts in an unusually early window at 1530 GMT (10:30 a.m. ET) as Kazakhstan's Kairat Almaty hosts Greece's Olympiacos.
