Shipping braces for Israel’s response to Iranian attacks

Shipping has to contend with new danger zones following Iran’s attack on Israel over the weekend and the hijacking of the 15,000 teu MSC Aries.

United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres urged warring parties to “step back from the brink” yesterday in what Ian Bremmer, a well-known political scientist and president of New York-based consultancy Eurasia Group, has described as the most perilous moment for the world since the Cuban missile crisis.

Tehran launched more than 300 projectiles at Israel over the weekend, in what it said was retaliation to an earlier strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, while the country’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy seized a containership (pictured) belonging to Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer’s Zodiac Maritime and operated by Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC) near the Strait of Hormuz.

Reports suggest that Israel will retaliate as early as today and there are also concerns about Iran’s potential blockade of the Strait of Hormuz with security consultants advising all Israeli-linked tonnage to avoid the area and the government in Tehran saying yesterday that all ships associated with the “Zionist regime” are banned from operating in the Strait of Hormuz between the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman and they will be “confiscated” if they enter the area.

Merchant shipping has been advised to move further away from the coastline of Israel, while one expert has warned that Algeria could open up another front against ships passing near its Mediterranean shoreline. 

A more belligerent Iran also made clear this weekend it would not hide behind proxies such as the Houthis in Yemen.

“From now on, if the Zionist regime attacks our interests, assets, figures, and citizens at any point, it will face counterattack from within the Islamic Republic of Iran,” said the chief commander of the IRGC, Hossein Salami.

The IRGC has made threats to target shipping in the Mediterranean, most recently in December.

Lars Jensen, the CEO of container shipping consultancy Vespucci Maritime, has been providing daily updates via LinkedIn on the unfolding Red Sea shipping crisis with the Houthis of Yemen – aided by the Iranian military – attacking around 80 ships over the past six months.

Jensen warned today that groups in Algeria have received attack drones from Iran, something which could impact shipping in the East Mediterranean.