Iran accused of seizing Singapore-bound tanker off coast of UAE

British military warns of ‘state activity’ after ship-tracking data shows Greek-owned, Marshall Islands-flagged vessel Talara suddenly diverted toward Islamic Republic

By Jon Gambrell 14 November 2025, 12:58 pm

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A frame grab from a video released by Iran's Revolutionary Guard on November 3, 2021, shows the Guard speed boats, center, in front of a US warship, left, amid the seizure of a Vietnamese-flagged oil tanker, right, in the Gulf of Oman. (Revolutionary Guard via AP)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A tanker transiting through the narrow Strait of Hormuz suddenly changed course into Iranian territorial waters Friday, with the British military warning that a possible “state activity” had affected it.

The warning from the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) center comes as a private security firm said small vessels had intercepted the ship earlier.

Iran has not acknowledged the incident, which happened off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. However, Tehran in the past has seized ships amid tensions with the West.

Details offered by the UKMTO and the private security firm Ambrey corresponded to a Marshall Islands-flagged tanker called Talara, which had left Ajman in the United Arab Emirates bound for Singapore. The ship suddenly turned toward Iran without explanation, ship-tracking data analyzed by The Associated Press showed Friday. The ship’s Greek owners did not respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, a US Navy MQ-4C Triton drone had been circling above the area where the Talara was for hours on Friday. The Navy’s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The US Navy has blamed Iran for a series of limpet mine attacks on vessels that damaged tankers in 2019, as well as for a fatal drone attack on an Israeli-linked oil tanker that killed two European crew members in 2021.

Those attacks began after US President Donald Trump, in his first term in office, unilaterally withdrew from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. The last major seizure came when Iran took two Greek tankers in May 2022 and held them until November of that year.

The Greek-flagged oil tanker Prudent Warrior, one of the ships seized by Iran in May 2022, is seen as it sails past Istanbul, Turkey, April 19, 2019. (Dursun Çam via AP)

Those attacks found themselves subsumed by the Iranian-backed Houthis’ assaults targeting ships during the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, which drastically reduced shipping in the crucial Red Sea corridor.

The years of tensions between Iran and the West, coupled with the situation in the Gaza Strip, exploded into a full-scale 12-day war in June between Iran and Israel. During that war, the US bombed Iranian nuclear sites as well.