The activities of Iranian ships ‘posing as merchant vessels’ in the waters of the Middle East is illegitimate, the Windward maritime intelligence agency has warned.
The movement of ships is ‘neither logical nor economical’ and suggests there is a sovereign, not a commercial interest at stake, the agency said.
A recent article in the Financial Times noted that over the past week, Saudi Arabian and US warships have closely tracked the Iran Shahed, a 3,000-tonne Iranian cargo vessel heading to Yemen and escorted by two Revolutionary Guard destroyers was increasing geopolitical tensions in the Gulf.
The FT said: “Riyadh fears the Shahed is laden with arms to bolster Yemen’s Houthi rebellion, drawing the Saudis and their allies deeper into a bloody backyard conflict they can ill-afford to lose.
“But Tehran appears to have scored something of a propaganda coup by announcing on Thursday that it would allow UN inspectors to verify the humanitarian contents of the ship, presumably to show that Saudi concerns are unfounded.”
The Shahed’s voyage had followed months of suspicious shipping activity between Iran and Yemen amid mounting claims from regional western diplomats and intelligence officials of Tehran’s complicity in the Yemeni civil war, the FT said.
It added: “Maritime data obtained by the Financial Times show that at least four large cargo ships, with a combined capacity of more than 15,000 tonnes, made a series of highly unusual and undeclared trips between Iran and Yemeni ports controlled by the Houthis in the first few months of this year.”
The report said: “While the cargo of the four ships cannot be verified, their pattern of behaviour is nevertheless striking.”
“All four undertook voyages to transport cargo from the port of Bandar Abbas in Iran to Yemen’s Houthi-controlled port of Al Hodeida – a route none had plied before – after the Houthi capture of Sana’a in January. The ships changed their ensigns, turned off their tracking devices at key points during their voyages, registered false information in international shipping logs and met unidentified craft mid-ocean.”
It quoted Windward chief executive Ami Daniel as saying: “If you look at any one piece of these ships’ activities by itself it might seem legitimate, but if you look at all of it together, there’s no way it can be.
“The problem is that no one sees all of this data normally. We are the only ones who have compiled it all. This has been going on under the noses of Nato patrols in the Gulf.”
In one example, a 7,000 cargo ship left South-east Asia, its sole historical area of operation, in December 2014, after changing its identity and registered domicile.
It arrived in Karachi in mid-January then departed at the end of the month, then turning off its tracking equipment and disappeared at sea for nine days, only to reappear in Iran’s Bandar Abbas in mid-February, where it was fully loaded.
It then left the same day and reappeared off the Yemeni coast, outside the Al Houthi-controlled port of Al Hodeida on February 23. It remained anchored in Yemeni waters for a month, before heading back towards Iran.
Daniel added to the FT: “This behaviour is neither logical or economical -it indicates that there is a sovereign, not a commercial interest at stake.”