Iranian authorities have detained 18 crew members of a foreign tanker seized in the Gulf of Oman, state media reported on Saturday, saying the vessel was carrying 6 million liters of smuggled fuel.
The detainees include the ship’s captain, Iranian media said, citing the judiciary in Hormozgan province. Authorities did not identify the tanker and said an investigation was underway. The semi-official Fars news agency later reported that the crew included nationals of India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
Iranian officials said the tanker was seized on Friday after committing multiple violations, including ignoring stop orders, attempting to flee, and lacking navigation and cargo documentation.
The detention follows a series of vessel seizures announced by Iranian authorities in recent weeks. In mid-November, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy confirmed the seizure of a Marshall Islands-flagged tanker off Iran’s Makran coast. Later in November, the Guards said they seized an Eswatini-flagged vessel in the Persian Gulf carrying about 350,000 liters of smuggled gasoil.
Iran, which maintains low domestic fuel prices through subsidies and has seen its currency weaken sharply, regularly reports interceptions of vessels accused of moving fuel illegally by sea to its Persian Gulf neighbours and by land to neighboring countries.
The Gulf of Oman and the nearby Strait of Hormuz sit along a major route for global energy shipments, where Iranian forces and international shipping have faced repeated disruptions in recent years.
“Any substantial effort to restore those capabilities will be a trigger for action,” Brigadier General Amir Avivi, a former officer in the Israeli military who now serves in the reserves, told Iran International in an interview.
The United States held five rounds of negotiations with Tehran over its disputed nuclear program earlier this year, for which President Donald Trump set a 60-day ultimatum.
When no agreement was reached by the 61st day Israel launched a surprise military offensive on June 13, followed by US strikes on June 22 targeting key nuclear facilities in Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow.
Avivi said Israel's destruction of Iran's air defense capabilities which ultimately paved the way for the US bombing run was swift.
“Within two days we had opened an air corridor to Tehran and could operate almost freely over large parts of Iran,” Avivi said. “They had more than 130 air-defense systems in the west and around Tehran, and we took out roughly 84 of them very quickly.”
Three red lines
Avivi said Israel in coordination with the United States is closely tracking Iran’s efforts to repair war damage as Tehran tries to project strength while quietly restoring parts of its military infrastructure.
“We are watching them by the minute, and there are three red lines that will bring Israel to act again: rebuilding advanced air defenses that close the corridor to Tehran, resuming mass production of ballistic missiles, and any move to renew nuclear weapons work,” Avivi said.
Tehran denies seeking a nuclear weapon and says it aims only for peaceful technology. Israel and Western countries doubt its intentions.
Israeli intelligence has warned that Iran hopes to build a missile arsenal capable of overwhelming Israel's defenses, even as Tehran insists its program is defensive and conventional.
“Before the war they were aiming for around 10,000 ballistic missiles, and we are not going to sit and wait for them to return to that level or get close to a weapons‑grade nuclear capability,” Avivi said.
Scientists, sites and industry
The attacks on June 21 also struck the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp’s (IRGC) external arm, killing Mohammad Saeed Izadi, who oversaw Palestinian operations, and Mohammadreza Nasirbaghban, the Quds Force’s deputy for intelligence.
The strikes killed senior nuclear scientists along with hundreds of military personnel and civilians. Iranian counterattacks killed 32 Israeli civilians and an off-duty soldier.
“We didn’t only hit the nuclear sites, we hit the scientists, the weaponization experts and the industries that make explosives, fuel and components, so they cannot easily rebuild,” Avivi said.
Iranian authorities have quietly moved surviving nuclear scientists to safe houses and dispersed some sensitive work, while publicly insisting that missile and cyber units remain fully operational.
“The regime was hit very, very hard, much harder than people think, and recovering that military‑industrial base will take them a very long time,” Avivi said. “The image of Iran as a regional powerhouse was exposed as a paper tiger, and that has encouraged Europe to move toward harsher measures.”
Psychological pressure
During the June attacks, Israel also struck Tehran’s Evin prison and state television main building. Iranian officials condemned Israel's onslaught as "terrorism" and "psychological warfare".
The UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran said in October that Israel likely violated international law in its military campaign in June while Tehran expanded repression after the conflict with hundreds of executions and new curbs on dissent.
When asked what was the objective of the attack on the prison which according to official tallies killed about 80 people, Avivi said it was a message to leaders in Tehran.
“We hit symbols of repression and propaganda to show that if we decide to destabilize the regime itself, not just its military capabilities, we can reach those places,” Avivi said.
“The idea was to throw the leadership off balance and make them feel existentially threatened, not just militarily exposed.”
‘Campaign between wars’
Avivi described the current period with Iran and its allies as a “campaign between wars,” in which covert operations and limited strikes are used to contain threats between major flare‑ups.
“We are moving from a short war to ongoing operations between wars, some of them kinetic and some not, including cyber and intelligence work,” he said.
Since June, Israel has continued to hit carry out air strikes on targets it says aim at Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. The strikes have killed hundreds of people according local health authorities, many of them civilians.
“We will keep degrading these groups systematically until the day comes when local governments can deal with them themselves,” Avivi said.
Next objective
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards claimed victory in the 12‑day war and threatened a tougher response if Israel strikes again in rhetoric rejected by Israel and the United States.
“In the last round we did not set regime change as a formal goal, but if this regime continues to threaten Israel’s existence, next time bringing it down could be on the table for Israel and the US,” Avivi said.
