Crew were hurt. No numbers yet. No word on how bad.
UKMTO hasn't named the ship, its flag or what it was carrying. Nobody has said who did this. Authorities are investigating now, and ships nearby have been told to move carefully and report anything suspicious.
That's everything we know.
Why this mattersSo here's why this one is different.
This is the second tanker attack in the Gulf in two days. And it's the first in months to land this far from the Strait of Hormuz.
A day earlier, a different tanker got hit. The Panama-flagged MT On Peace was struck by a projectile in the strait itself, off Oman. Twelve of its 19 crew were hurt. Eleven of them were Indian nationals. Oman had to evacuate the wounded.
And that wasn't a one-off either. At least five ships were attacked in or near the strait in just four days. The LNG carrier Maran Gas Mystras. The LPG carrier Vela Gas. Two huge crude carriers, Cameroon Prosperity and Ghana Prosperity.
All of that happened in the strait. A fifth of the world's oil moves through that one narrow gap.
This strike didn't happen there.
It happened well inside the Gulf, off Qatar, in waters that have mostly been left alone while the strait took all the pressure. So ships that thought they were safely out of range might not be.
Qatar has been hit before, too. Back in July, a Qatari LNG tanker called the Al Rekayyat caught fire after a projectile hit it near the strait. Qatar said Iran was behind that one. In April, another Qatar-linked tanker, the Aqua 1, was struck by two projectiles off Qatar's coast. Nobody was hurt that time. One of the projectiles didn't even explode.
Nobody has officially said who is behind any of these attacks. But look at the pattern. Ships linked to Gulf states, hit again and again, inside the strait and now outside it, ever since the war between Israel and Iran started. Most people point straight at Iran or Iran-backed forces. Iran hasn't commented on any single strike.
Here's the real shift though. Before, these strikes damaged ships and left crews alone. The Aqua 1 in April: hit twice, nobody hurt.
Now people are getting hurt. Twelve crew hurt on the MT On Peace. And now this one too.
Two tankers hit in two days. One of them deep inside the Gulf. Both with people hurt.
Nobody has said who's doing this. Nobody has said why the range is growing, or why crews are suddenly being hit.
