Tel Aviv. According to the US media , Israel is behind the attack on the Iranian ship in the red sea. If these reports are true than it proves that Israel has expanded its war against Iran to the maritime arena. This was after hundreds of aerial attacks on shipment of weapons on their way from Iran to Lebanon. If the details of the attack can be confirmed than it follows two strikes on Israeli owned ships that sailed in the in the region.

According to the New York Times, Israel notified the US that it is responsible for the Tuesday attack on an Iranian cargo ship affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps off the coast of Eritrea in the Red Sea.

Iranian news outlet Tasnim, affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) reported that the ship’s hull was damaged in an explosion caused by explosive charges. According to Saudi Arabia the blast was caused by “Israeli commandos”.

The United States Naval Institute (USNI) reported last year that the damaged ship Saviz, while officially listed as a merchant ship, was likely a covert IRGC forward base. Tasnim confirmed this on Tuesday, saying that the ship had been stationed in the Red Sea in recent years to support Iranian commandos escorting commercial vessels. According to the USNI, as of October 2020, the ship had barely moved from its location off the coast of Yemen for three years. The report claims that the ship was probably used  to gather intelligence for Iran and the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen.

While the U.S is making big efforts to persuade Iran to stop the Uranium enrichment as part of this country’s nuclear program, Israeli sources claim that even if Iran agrees on this, it will not slow its nuclear program as they know how to operate the centrifuges in covert sites that the international observers cannot visit. “Israel does not need the observers reports. It knows exactly what the Iranian do”, one source said.

-The writer is an International Roving Correspondent of the publication.=