Iran has seized a ship “linked” to Israel, announce the regime’s official media

The maritime special forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic, seized a container ship “linked” to Israel in the Gulf on Saturday April 13, the official Irna agency announced. “A container ship named MCS Aries was seized by maritime special forces” during “an operation carried out with a helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz”which borders Iran between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, said IRNA.

This ship “flying the Portuguese flag and managed by the Zodiac company, which is owned by the Zionist capitalist Eyal Ofer”was being “directed towards territorial waters” of Iran, details the agency, which shared a video purporting to show the operation carried out using a difficult to identify helicopter.

This seizure comes in an extremely tense regional context since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, but also the Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus (Syria). On Friday, the American president Joe Biden said he expected Iran to take action soon. “I don’t want to give away confidential information, but I expect it will be soon,” declared the American president, who also responded to a question about the message he wanted to send to Tehran: “Don’t do it !”.

On the Israeli side, there was no immediate reaction to this operation. “We have strengthened our preparation to protect Israel from further Iranian aggression. We are also ready to respond,” assured the spokesperson for the Israeli army, Daniel Hagari, in a statement published after the announcement by Iranian media.