Mysterious incidents off the coast of the UAE

According to reports from pro-Iranian media and an Israeli television station on Tuesday, 13 April, a merchant ship was attacked off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. It is said to be the Hyperion Raya vehicle transporter built in 2015, 200 metres long and 36 metres wide, which sails for the shipping company Ray Car Carrier. The ship was en route from Mina Al Ahmadi in Kuwait to the United Arab Emirates.
Around midday on 13 April (approx. seven o'clock CET), the Hyperion Ray suspicious ship movements in their immediate vicinity. Satellite images show a larger cargo ship, which according to reports is the Hyperion Ray with two smaller units operating in her stern area. In the early evening of 13 April, the ship reported an explosion. Approximately 20 nautical miles east of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates, the Hyperion Ray according to its own reports, was hit by either a missile or a drone. According to unconfirmed publications, the Hyperion Ray navigated without using the AIS (a vessel identification system).
Not far from her operated the Belgian frigate Leopold I on behalf of the European Maritime Awareness Mission in the Strait of Hormuz (Emasoh/Operation Agénor). The headquarters of Emasoh tweeted that at the time in question no information about the Hyperion Ray were available.
Based on the known patterns of ship movements in the Persian Gulf and its approaches, the appearance of fast, small civilian and military boats is not unusual. It becomes suspicious when these units follow the larger ships or even shadow them closely, i.e. accompany them in close proximity.
At the end of February 2021, the Helios Ray - also a car transporter which, according to the vesselfinder.com ship database, belongs to the same owner as the Hyperion Ray also registered in the Bahamas - exploded in the Gulf of Oman. Two weeks later, an Iranian container ship was damaged in an attack in the Mediterranean.
The incident on the Hyperion Ray could be in connection with the attack on the Iranian Saviz in the past week. The Iranian ship, which has been anchored in international waters off the coast of Yemen in the Red Sea since the end of 2016, is suspected of serving as a mother ship for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in their support for the Houthi rebels in Yemen. It is also worth noting that the attack on the Hyperion Ray occurred a few days after the mysterious incident at Iran's Natanz nuclear enrichment plant.
It is striking that these incidents follow US President Joe Biden's announcement that he would rejoin the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA). The proximity in time to the resumption of talks in Vienna may also not be a coincidence.

Text: Hans-Uwe Mergener; Photo: US Navy

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