At least one person is dead, and two oil tankers are burning in the Persian Gulf after what officials believe was an Iranian attack on the vessels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Explosive-packed Iranian boats slammed into the tankers on Wednesday, according to Reuters, which cited the early findings of an Iraqi-led investigation into the blasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ships may have been carrying up to 400,000 barrels of Iraqi oil, according to TankerTrackers.com.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Farhan al Fartousi, director general of the Iraqi Ports Company, told CNN that all 38 foreign crew members aboard the vessels had to be evacuated following the \u201cexplosions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dramatic footage circulating online shows massive flames consuming the ships and spreading across the surrounding water \u2014 a sign that oil is leaking from the tankers, which had been anchored side by side before the strike, CNN reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The targeted vessels were identified as the Maltese-flagged Zefyros and the Marshall Islands-flagged Safesea Vishnu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Safesea Vishnu is owned by U.S.-based Safesea Transport Inc., while the Zefyros belongs to a Greek shipping company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The suspected attack occurred within Iraq\u2019s territorial waters near the Al Faw port outside Basra, according to Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The strike comes as global energy markets remain on edge amid escalating hostilities between the United States, Israel and Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BREAKING:\u00a0Mojtaba Khamenei Has Lost A Leg, Fallen Into Coma: Report<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Oil prices have surged this week over fears that the widening conflict could disrupt global supply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Roughly\u00a0one-fifth\u00a0of the world\u2019s oil moves through the\u00a0Strait of Hormuz\u00a0each day. The critical\u00a0shipping lane\u00a0sits about 600 miles south of Wednesday\u2019s tanker attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shipping through the strait has largely ground to a halt amid Operation Epic Fury and Iranian counterattacks, forcing some producers to scale back exports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Iran\u2019s regime has threatened to\u00a0block oil tankers\u00a0from passing through the narrow waterway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In response, the U.S. military earlier this week destroyed more than a dozen Iranian vessels believed to be laying naval mines in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n President Trump has indicated he may tap the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to stabilize fuel prices if the disruption worsens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The International Energy Agency separately said its 31 member nations are preparing to release a record 400 million barrels of oil from emergency reserves to offset the supply shock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At least one person is dead, and two oil tankers are burning in the Persian Gulf after what officials believe was an Iranian attack on the vessels. Explosive-packed Iranian boats slammed into the tankers on Wednesday, according to Reuters, which cited the early findings of an Iraqi-led investigation into the blasts. The ships may have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":162,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":3,"label":"News"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Screenshot_14-1024x626.jpg",1024,626,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"flashpoint","author_link":"https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/?author=1"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":3,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":34,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":3,"category_count":34,"category_description":"","cat_name":"News","category_nicename":"news","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=161"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163,"href":"https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions\/163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}