A fire has been reported on a vessel that was hit by an unidentified object off the coast of Saudi Arabia, according to a report on ynet. The cause of the fire and the status of the crew were not immediately clear.
Just after midnight on Thursday, a fire was reported on board a vessel off the coast of Saudi Arabia that had been struck by an unknown object, according to a report by ynet. The report is the latest in a rapid succession of maritime incident reports in the area over the past hour.
The sequence began at 00:16 Jerusalem, when security analyst Yair Goldblatt reported that the British Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) center had noted a maritime incident near the Saudi coast. Minutes later, an unverified report claimed a ship had been attacked, followed by another unverified report specifying an oil tanker. UKMTO then confirmed a maritime incident 70 nautical miles off Al Shuqaiq, and the location was refined to 70 nautical miles off the Saudi Red Sea coast. The latest ynet report adds that a fire has broken out on the vessel.
The incident comes amid a series of maritime security events in the region. As The Zioneer reported on July 14, a fire broke out on a chemical-laden vessel off Oman, and on July 20, UKMTO reported a ship fire off Oman's coast. Additional unverified reports have described exchanges of fire and drone boat attacks off Yemen.
The ship's identity, the exact nature of the object that struck it, the cause of the fire, and the status of the crew remain unconfirmed. The ynet report is a single-source account and has not yet been independently corroborated.
6 developments
Source and signal
- Internal intake