Official says oil tanker hit by bomb-carrying drone off Oman

Nov 16, 2022

An oil tanker associated with an Israeli billionaire has been struck by a bomb-carrying drone off the coast of Oman amid heightened tensions with Iran

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An oil tanker associated with an Israeli billionaire has been struck by a bomb-carrying drone off the coast of Oman amid heightened tensions with Iran, an official told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The attack on the Liberian-flagged oil tanker Pacific Zircon happened Tuesday night off the coast of Oman, the Mideast-based defense official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as they did not have authorization to discuss the attack publicly.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, a British military organization in the region monitoring shipping, told the AP: “We are aware of an incident and it’s being investigated at this time.”

The Pacific Zircon is operated by Singapore-based Eastern Pacific Shipping, which is a company ultimately owned by Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer.

In a statement, Eastern Pacific Shipping said the Pacific Zircon, carrying gas oil, had been “hit by a projectile” some 150 miles (240 kilometers) off the coast of Oman.

“We are in communication with the vessel and there is no reports of injuries or pollution. All crew are safe and accounted for,” the company said. “There is some minor damage to the vessel’s hull but no spillage of cargo or water ingress.”

A call to the Israeli Embassy in Abu Dhabi rang unanswered. Israel's prime minister office and its defense ministry declined to comment.

Oil prices rose slightly as news of the attack spread, with benchmark Brent crude trading above $94 a barrel.

While no one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, suspicion immediately fell on Iran. Tehran and Israel have been engaged in a yearslong shadow war in the wider Middle East, with some drone attacks targeting Israeli-associated vessels traveling around the region.

The U.S. also blamed Iran for a series of attacks occurring off the coast of the United Arab Emirates in 2019. Tehran then had begun escalating its nuclear program following the U.S.' unilateral withdraw from its atomic deal with world powers.

In 2021, a suspected Iranian drone strike hit the Israeli-associated oil tanker Mercer Street off Oman, killing two people onboard.

Iranian state media did not immediately acknowledge the attack on the Pacific Zircon. It wasn't immediately clear where the vessel was Wednesday. Satellite-tracking data from late Tuesday provided by MarineTraffic.com put the vessel deep in the Arabian Sea after leaving the Omani port of Sohar.

Since the collapse of Iran's nuclear deal, nonproliferation experts warn the Islamic Republic now has enough enriched uranium to make at least one nuclear weapon if it chose, though Tehran insists its program is peaceful.

Iran also has been lashing out at its perceived enemies abroad amid monthslong nationwide protests now challenging its theocracy.

It also comes comes just days ahead of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar. While Doha maintains good relations with Tehran, with whom it shares a massive natural offshore natural gas field, Israelis will be attending the tournament. Iran's national team also will face Britain and the U.S. in first-round matches, two countries it accuses of fomenting the unrest.

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Associated Press writers Tia Goldenberg and Ilan Ben Zion in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

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Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

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The far-right just lost. Twice.

Oct 26, 2026

The far-right just lost. Twice.

Supporters of Serbia’s Students’ List movement celebrate in Belgrade on October 26, 2026. | Milos Milanovic/AFP via Getty Images This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here. Vox isn’t typically in the business of covering elections in far-flung locales like the central Balkans. (No offense whatsoever to anyone from the central Balkans!) But on Sunday, an insurgent student-backed movement in Serbia successfully toppled the country’s ruling right-wing political machine, creating an unexpected opening for democratic reform.  Then, in another upset halfway around the globe, Brazilian voters reelected incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva over his far-right challenger, Flávio Bolsonaro. “Democracy always, dictatorship never again,” Lula said in his victory speech. That’s two big repudiations of the nationalist right in 24 hours. Not quite enough to declare a trend, maybe, but sufficient to remind us that there’s still hope for the world’s embattled democratic institutions.  More than that, these results offer evidence of something that sounds naive and Pollyannish in our current moment, but can (apparently!) still prove true: Organizing can be a powerful force for electoral change — both abroad and maybe here at home. Go a little deeper View Link To be fair, the two elections differed considerably, and I don’t want to suggest it’s all sunshine and democratic renewal ahead for Brazil and Serbia. Bolsonaro is refusing to concede, for instance. And in Serbia, the victorious Student List still has to stand up a government, a prime minister, and a full policy platform — something the nascent movement has never done before.  But academics and elections-watchers in both countries have credited the results in large part to mass protests and grassroots organizing that helped mobilize unexpected numbers of voters. Serbian students began their movement in 2024, following the partial collapse of a railway station that killed 16 people. The government’s failure to fully explain the cause of the collapse — or hold anyone responsible — fueled months of marches, protest bike rides, and other demonstrations. That movement eventually grew into the Student List: an opposition electoral slate that fielded 250 candidates in Sunday’s parliamentary elections.  The story in Brazil is quite different. Lula, the country’s leftist president, was actually poised to lose. Brazil uses a two-round popular vote to elect its president, and if no candidate secures more than half the vote in the first round, then the top two candidates proceed to a runoff election. 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Arguably, that’s in part a consequence of their failure to turn protest energy into actual political organizing — things like registering voters, knocking on doors, and fielding candidates.  But there are some signs that may be shifting. No Kings has lately pivoted its focus, for instance, from mostly organizing protests to urging Americans — of both parties — to vote in the midterms. And Indivisible, one of the groups behind the movement, claims that early voting surged during the latest protests in the zip codes where they occurred. It’s not exactly a central Balkan moment, but maybe it’s a hint of things to come. Elections can surprise you, after all. Just ask a Serb or a Brazilian.  One link for later ➨ Leave your big life decisions to chance. (Sort of.) A team of researchers invited people to make a big life decision by flipping a coin and then tracked their happiness with the outcome. They found that, of the people who obeyed the results of the toss, the ones who changed something big were overwhelmingly happier. That doesn’t literally mean we should all resort to coin tosses, but it should tell us something important: We often tend to be too cautious about making major changes.  Before you go… Did you know…that in the 1870s and ’80s, spectators flocked to Madison Square Garden for long-distance walking competitions? Athletes walked up to 600 miles in six days, just going round and round the stadium.  Today’s trivia: Which New Jersey city was the first predominantly white community in the US to vote in favor of school integration? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in tomorrow’s edition.) Yesterday’s trivia: Last week we asked you for the radioactive noble gas with the chemical symbol Rn. That would be radon, once a trendy (deadly) ingredient in quack medicines.

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