Iran will “definitely” respond to a recent attack on an Iranian ship in the Red Sea, a spokesman for the Islamic Republic’s military said Thursday.
Brig. Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi told Russian news agency Sputnik that Iran was investigating Tuesday’s attack on the Saviz and would not retaliate until the competition of the probe.
Shekarchi also said Iran suspected Israel and the US were linked to the attack.
The Saviz, which was reportedly hit by a limpet mine, has allegedly been used for years by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a command-and-control center for its operations in the region.
A US official told The New York Times on Tuesday that Israeli forces carried out the attack.
The anonymous US official said Israel called the strike a retaliation for several attacks on Israeli-owned shipping vessels in recent weeks, and that the ship had been hit below the waterline.
The IRGC blamed Israel for the attack on social media while Iran’s Foreign Ministry merely said the vessel had been damaged in an “explosion.”
Israeli officials have refused to comment on the matter, in line with a longstanding policy of ambiguity regarding its military actions against Iran in the region, save for those that are direct, immediate retaliations for attacks on Israel.
No comments:
Post a Comment