US seizes 600,000 barrels of smuggled Iranian crude oil

A Liberian-flagged oil tanker Ice Energy on Thursday transfers crude oil from the Iranian-flagged oil tanker Lana, off the shore of Karystos in Greece. (Reuters)
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Updated 27 May 2022
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US seizes 600,000 barrels of smuggled Iranian crude oil

  • Cargo confiscated off coast of Greece 
  • Sanctions enforced again as nuclear deal hopes fade

JEDDAH: The US has confiscated more than 600,000 barrels of smuggled Iranian crude oil from a tanker off the coast of Greece in a new wave of sanctions enforcement.
The cargo of oil was pumped off the tanker into another vessel on Thursday and is now being transferred to the US.
The oil tanker, the Pegas, was targeted under two sets of sanctions — against Russia because it is Russian owned, and against Iran because it was carrying Iranian oil.
The Pegas was one of five vessels named by Washington on Feb. 22, two days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in sanctions against Promsvyazbank, a bank viewed as critical to Russia’s defense sector. The tanker was renamed Lana on March 1 and has been flying the Iranian flag since May 1.
The vessel, with 19 Russian crew members on board, was initially impounded by Greek authorities last month off the coast of the southern Greek island of Evia.
Greece said the ship had been seized as part of EU sanctions on Russia for the invasion of Ukraine, but the vessel was later released.

FASTFACT

The oil tanker, the Pegas, was targeted under two sets of sanctions — against Russia because it is Russian owned, and against Iran because it was carrying Iranian oil.

However, the US imposed new sanctions this week on a Russian-backed oil smuggling and money laundering network for the Quds Force, the foreign operations unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. As a result, the oil tanker was seized again.
Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organization said the tanker had sought refuge along Greece’s coast after experiencing technical problems and poor weather, and the seizure of its cargo was “a clear example of piracy.”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned the charge d’affaires of Greece’s embassy in Tehran following the seizure of the cargo.
The ship was “under the banner of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Greek waters and he was informed of the strong objections” of Iran’s government, the ministry said.
In 2020, Washington confiscated four cargos of Iranian fuel aboard foreign ships that were bound for Venezuela and transferred them with the help of undisclosed foreign partners on to two other ships which then sailed to the US.
Operations against smuggled Iranian oil had tailed off recently amid hopes for a revival of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of sanctions, including those targeting oil exports.
However, talks on reviving the deal have stalled, and the new oil cargo seizure suggests that the US is again enforcing sanctions.
Washington’s Iran envoy said this week the chances of reviving the nuclear deal were now shaky at best, and the US was ready to tighten sanctions on Iran.


Israel minister says army will ‘ensure Iran cannot threaten’ country again

Updated 4 sec ago
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Israel minister says army will ‘ensure Iran cannot threaten’ country again

  • Arch-foes fought a 12-day war last month
JERUSALEM: Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Friday said the army had a plan to prevent Iran from threatening Israel again after the arch-foes fought a 12-day war last month.
The Israeli military will prepare an “enforcement plan to ensure that Iran cannot threaten Israel again,” Katz said in a statement, adding that “the army must prepare on the intelligence and operational level to ensure that the Air Force maintains air superiority over Tehran.”

Trump expects Hamas decision in 24 hours on ‘final’ Gaza peace proposal

Updated 04 July 2025
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Trump expects Hamas decision in 24 hours on ‘final’ Gaza peace proposal

  • Israel has earlier agreed on terms for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Friday it would probably be known in 24 hours whether the Palestinian militant group Hamas has agreed to accept what he has called a “final proposal” for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza.

The president also said he had spoken to Saudi Arabia about expanding the Abraham Accords, the deal on normalization of ties that his administration negotiated between Israel and some Gulf countries during his first term.

Trump said on Tuesday Israel had accepted the conditions needed to finalize a 60-day ceasefire with Hamas, during which the parties will work to end the war.

He was asked on Friday if Hamas had agreed to the latest ceasefire deal framework, and said: “We’ll see what happens, we are going to know over the next 24 hours.”

A source close to Hamas said on Thursday the Islamist group sought guarantees that the new US-backed ceasefire proposal would lead to the end of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Two Israeli officials said those details were still being worked out. Dozens of Palestinians were killed on Thursday in Israeli strikes, according to Gaza authorities.

The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered in October 2023 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, Israeli tallies show.

Gaza’s health ministry says Israel’s subsequent military assault has killed over 56,000 Palestinians. It has also caused a hunger crisis, internally displaced Gaza’s entire population and prompted accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice and of war crimes at the International Criminal Court. Israel denies the accusations.

A previous two month ceasefire ended when Israeli strikes killed more than 400 Palestinians on March 18. Trump earlier this year proposed a US takeover of Gaza, which was condemned globally by rights experts, the UN and Palestinians as a proposal of “ethnic cleansing.”

Abraham Accords

Trump made the comments on the Abraham Accords when asked about US media reporting late on Thursday that he had met Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman at the White House.

“It’s one of the things we talked about,” Trump said. “I think a lot of people are going to be joining the Abraham accords,” he added, citing the predicted expansion to the damage faced by Iran from recent US and Israeli strikes.

Axios reported that after the meeting with Trump, the Saudi official spoke on the phone with Abdolrahim Mousavi, chief of Iran’s General Staff of the Armed Forces.

Trump’s meeting with the Saudi official came ahead of a visit to Washington next week by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.


Darfur civilians ‘face mass atrocities and ethnic violence’

Updated 04 July 2025
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Darfur civilians ‘face mass atrocities and ethnic violence’

  • Medical charity warns of new threat from escalation in fighting in Sudan civil war

KHARTOUM: Civilians in the Darfur region of Sudan face mass atrocities and ethnic violence in the civil war between the regular army and its paramilitary rivals, the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres warned on Thursday.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have sought to consolidate their power in Darfur since losing control of the capital Khartoum in March. Their predecessor, the Janjaweed militia, was accused of genocide in Darfur two decades ago.

The paramilitaries have intensified attacks on El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state which they have besieged since May 2024 in an effort to push the army out of its final stronghold in the region.
“People are not only caught in indiscriminate heavy fighting ... but also actively targeted by the Rapid Support Forces and their allies, notably on the basis of their ethnicity,” said Michel-Olivier Lacharite, Medecins Sans Frontieres’ head of emergencies. There were “threats of a full-blown assault,” on El-Fasher, which is home to hundreds of thousands of people largely cut off from food and water supplies and deprived of access to medical care, he said.


Egypt on alert as giant dam in Ethiopia completed

Updated 04 July 2025
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Egypt on alert as giant dam in Ethiopia completed

ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopia moved on Thursday to reassure Egypt about its water supply after completing work on a controversial giant $4 billion dam on the Blue Nile.

“To our neighbors downstream, our message is clear: the dam is not a threat, but a shared opportunity,” Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said.

“The energy and development it will generate stand to uplift not just Ethiopia. We believe in shared progress, shared energy, and shared water. Prosperity for one should mean prosperity for all.”

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is 1.8 km wide and 145 meters high, and is Africa's largest hydroelectric project. It can hold 74 billion cubic meters of water and generate more than 5,000 megawatts of power — more than double Ethiopia’s current output. It will begin full operations in September.

Egypt already suffers from severe water scarcity and sees the dam as an existential threat because the country relies on the Nile for 97 percent of its water. President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Sudan’s leader Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan met last week and “stressed their rejection of any unilateral measures in the Blue Nile basin.” They were committed to safeguarding water security in the region, Sisi’s spokesman said.


Explosive drone intercepted near Irbil airport in northern Iraq, security statement says

Updated 03 July 2025
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Explosive drone intercepted near Irbil airport in northern Iraq, security statement says

  • The “Flight operations at the airport continued normally,” the Irbil airport authority said

IRBIL, Iraq: An explosive drone was shot down near Irbil airport in northern Iraq on Thursday, the Iraqi Kurdistan’s counter-terrorism service said in a statement.

There were no casualties reported, according to two security sources.

The “Flight operations at the airport continued normally and the airport was not affected by any damage,” the Irbil airport authority said in a statement.

The incident only caused a temporary delay in the landing of one aircraft, the statement added.