Iran warship catches fire and sinks in Gulf

of Oman, say local agencies

The Kharg, the largest vessel in the Iranian navy, is lost in
unclear circumstances, according to report

The Iranian navy’s largest warship caught fire and sank in unclear circumstances in
the Gulf of Oman on Wednesday, semi-official news agencies have reported.
The Fars and Tasnim agencies said efforts failed to save the support ship Kharg,
named after the island that serves as Iran’s main oil terminal.
The blaze began at about 2:25 am and firefighters tried to contain it, Fars said.

Photos circulated on Iranian social media of sailors in lifejackets evacuating the

vessel as a fire burned behind them. State TV and semi-official news agencies
referred to the Kharg as a “training ship”. Fars published video of thick, black smoke
rising from the ship early on Wednesday morning.
The Kharg is one of a few vessels in the Iranian navy capable of replenishing other
ships at sea. It can also lift heavy cargo and serve as a launch point for helicopters.
The vessel, built in Britain and launched in 1977, entered the Iranian navy in 1984
after lengthy negotiations that followed Iran‘s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Iranian officials offered no cause for the fire, but it follows a series of mysterious
explosions targeting ships in the Gulf of Oman that began in 2019. The US later
accused Iran of targeting the ships with limpet mines.

Iran denied targeting the vessels, though US footage showed Revolutionary Guards
members removing one unexploded limpet mine from a vessel. The incidents came at
a time of heightened tensions between the Washington and Tehran after Donald
Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers.
The MV Saviz, an Iranian ship believed to be a Revolutionary Guard base and
anchored for years in the Red Sea off Yemen was targeted in an attack in April
suspected to have been the work of Israel. It escalated a years-long shadow war in
Middle-East waters between the two countries.
The sinking of the Kharg marks the latest naval disaster for Iran. In 2020, during an
military training exercise, a missile mistakenly struck a naval vessel near the port of
Jask, killing 19 sailors and wounding 15. In 2018, an Iranian navy destroyer sank in
the Caspian Sea.