‘Iran could be behind Israeli ship blast’

TEHRAN: The “resistance axis” of Tehran and its regional allies may have been behind an explosion that hit an Israeli-owned “spy” vessel four days ago, an ultraconservative Iranian newspaper said on Sunday.

The MV Helios Ray, a vehicle carrier, was travelling from the Saudi port of Dammam to Singapore when the blast occurred on Thursday, according to the London-based Dryad Global maritime security group.

Citing unnamed “military experts”, Kayhan, Iran’s leading ultraconservative daily, wrote in a front-page report that “the targeted ship in the Gulf of Oman is a military ship belonging to the Israeli army”. It was “gathering information about the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman” when it was targeted, the newspaper said. “This spy ship, although it was sailing secretly, may have fallen into the ambush of one of the branches of the resistance axis,” it added, without offering further details.