July 7 (Reuters) – Two tankers were hit in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, including an LNG carrier at risk of explosion, as huge crowds mourning Iran’s slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei thronged the holy city of Qom.
The Qatari liquefied natural gas tanker Al Rekayyat reported being struck overnight and was at risk of exploding after a fire broke out in its engine room, sources told Reuters. The crew were safe and were being evacuated.
A Saudi-flagged crude oil tanker, believed to be the supertanker Wedyan, was also damaged off Oman’s coast, maritime security sources said. The cause was not immediately clear.
“Mayday mayday mayday. This is vessel Al Rekayyat, LNG vessel Al Rekayyat. We are being hit by drone on port side, top of engine room,” the Qatari tanker’s captain said in a recorded radio call reviewed by Reuters. “Status: engine room fire and full of smoke. Unable to assess further damage.”
There was no claim of responsibility. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said initial indications were that Iran had fired at two commercial vessels. Tehran did not immediately comment.
The incidents marked the first reported attacks in the strait since mourning for Khamenei began last week, underscoring the continuing insecurity for Gulf shipping more than four months after the United States and Israel launched a war they said would stop Iran threatening its neighbours.
HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS TAKE TO STREETS IN QOM
Iran’s clerical rulers have exerted newfound control over the world’s most important energy shipping route, where they aim to install a permanent system to collect fees in what would amount to a huge shift of the balance of power in a region where Washington has long acted as guarantor of security.
At home, the leadership has used the mourning period to demonstrate its control after Khamenei was killed alongside his daughter, granddaughter, son-in-law and daughter-in-law on the first day of the war.
The caskets of the slain leader and family were driven through the streets of the seminary city of Qom on Tuesday, where many hundreds of thousands of people carried flags and banners comparing Khamenei to martyrs whose deaths are foundational to the Shi’ite sect.
In chants they vowed to avenge Khamenei. Some bore placards and banners reading “KILL TRUMP”.
A similar huge funeral procession was held in the streets of Tehran on Monday, following more solemn prayer events that began last Friday, attracting top figures in Iran’s leadership and dignitaries from abroad. Authorities say the leader’s body will be taken to Shi’ite holy cities in neighbouring Iraq, then brought back to Iran and laid to rest in a mediaeval shrine.
TRUMP: ‘MAKE A DEAL OR WE’RE GOING TO FINISH THE JOB’
The war has been paused under an interim peace deal reached last month, intended to provide a 60-day period for negotiations on a permanent deal. A round of indirect talks in Qatar concluded last week with no sign of headway towards a lasting peace.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to resume bombing, most recently on Monday when he told reporters in the Oval Office: “We’re either going to make a deal or we’re going to finish the job…. We can knock down their bridges in one hour, we can knock out their energy supply.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said that under the terms of the interim ceasefire memorandum, negotiations on the final deal would “not commence if threats continue”.
“Honor your signature,” he wrote on X.
Oil prices, which have returned to around the pre-war level since last month’s interim deal let ships resume sailing through the strait, ticked up around 1% on Tuesday following the incidents in the waterway.
In launching the war four months ago, Trump said his aims were to destroy Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes, end its ability to threaten its neighbours and create conditions for Iranians to topple their leaders.
None of those objectives has been met, although Washington says a permanent deal will halt what it says is an Iranian programme that could make a nuclear weapon, which Iran says it never sought.
Despite five days of mourning, there has still been no sign in public of Khamenei’s son and successor Mojtaba, believed to have been disfigured by wounds in the same attack and yet to be shown in any image since the war began. Three other sons of the slain leader prayed at the casket on Sunday.
Iran’s leaders have portrayed the mass funeral gatherings as proof of national unity following the U.S.-Israeli attacks, although it is difficult to assess how deep that loyalty runs in a country where media and communications are tightly controlled.
Just weeks before the war started, Iran’s authorities killed thousands of demonstrators to put down some of the biggest anti-government protests in the country’s history, but there has been no sign of organised opposition in Iran since the war began.
(Reporting by a Reuters team in Tehran and Reuters bureauxWriting by Peter Graff; Editing by Aidan Lewis and Ros Russell)
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