Armed assailants boarded the chemical tanker Asana in the Gulf of Aden on Friday and are believed to be in control of the vessel, maritime security sources told Reuters. The tanker, which had no confirmed flag, had listed the Somali port of Bosaso as its next destination and issued a distress call at around 0620 GMT.
Initial assessments point to Somali piracy rather than an attack by Yemen's Iran aligned Houthi militia, according to one of the maritime security sources. British maritime security firm Ambrey said the ship had no armed security team on board and that the attackers were suspected to be part of a pirate action group. Details on the number of assailants and the status of the crew remain unclear.
The vessel's operator was listed in shipping databases as Marshall Islands based Exon Energy, which could not be reached for comment. The British navy's UKMTO agency said earlier on Friday that a vessel had been boarded by unauthorized personnel while transiting east about 65 nautical miles south of Yemen's Al Mukalla port.
The European Union's Aspides naval mission, which patrols the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, said efforts were under way to assist the Asana and determine what happened. A South Korean warship was in the area, an Aspides official told Reuters, and British risk group Vanguard said the circumstances of the boarding remained unclear.
The incident lands at a fraught moment for regional shipping. Iran has asked the Houthis to stand ready to close the Red Sea oil route if Washington strikes Iranian power infrastructure, and tanker owners are already contending with missile strikes in the Strait of Hormuz. A resurgence of Somali piracy on top of state backed attacks would push war risk premiums and crew hazard pay higher across an already thinned out Gulf transit fleet.