Six additional Iranian vessels may have been targeted in 2020, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report. In November 2019, Iran disclosed that three of its tankers ( Happiness 1, Helm, and Sabiti) had been attacked off Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast within a period of six months, spurring Tehran to warn international shipping authorities that commercial routes in that waterway were no longer safe. Both sides seem keen to contain their attacks, but the situation could nonetheless escalate-especially now that de facto military vessels like the Saviz are apparently being targeted amid new attacks on other fronts (e.g., the April 10 sabotage operation against Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility). Israel has never publicly accepted responsibility for these attacks against Iranian ships bound for Syria, but media reports and unofficial disclosures have essentially confirmed its role, and Iran’s hand in recent attacks against Israeli ships is clear as well. In response, Israel began a more concerted naval disruption campaign with apparent support from Western allies and, perhaps, Arab Gulf states. Yet Tehran’s desire to cement its military presence in Syria and its supply lines to Hezbollah led to more systematic illegal shipments of oil products, supplies, and, at times, arms. Of course, Iran had used ships to send weapons and ammunition to groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad long before 2019, with Israel seizing at least four of them between 20. The maritime front of this undeclared conflict has intensified since 2019 due in large part to an increase in Iran’s illicit oil smuggling efforts, which are aimed at funding Lebanese Hezbollah, facilitating the foreign operations of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF), and propping up Syria’s Assad regime ( see Part 1 of this PolicyWatch for a fuller discussion of these smuggling networks). ![]() Together, the two attacks appear to be the latest ripostes in Iran and Israel’s long-running, low-intensity shadow war. A week earlier, explosions badly damaged the Saviz, a converted cargo ship that Iran permanently moored in the Red Sea to serve as a suspected intelligence collection outpost and floating armory. On April 13, explosions rocked the Israeli-owned car-carrier ship Hyperion Ray near Fujairah. ![]() Although both sides have sought to keep their tit-for-tat maritime attacks under control, they pose a substantial risk of miscalculation and escalation that could jeopardize international shipping.
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