Expatriot wrote:Hmmm. What have we here? Is it the start of a FF op? ...
WASHINGTON — Militant jihadists claimed Tuesday that a suicide bomber blew himself up on a Japanese oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz last week, the US monitoring group SITE said.
"Last Wednesday, after midnight, the martyrdom-seeking hero Ayyub al-Taishan ... blew himself up in the Japanese tanker M.Star in the Strait of Hormuz between the United Arab Emirates and Oman," the Brigades of Abdullah Azzam group said in a statement posted on an Islamist website used by militants.
Newfie wrote:He said the enemy 'will be brought to its knees' as soon as it makes a move.
DOHA, Qatar (AP) -- The oil minister of the United Arab Emirates says a new crude oil pipeline that will bypass the strategically sensitive Strait of Hormuz is almost finished.
Mohammed bin Dhaen al-Hamli made the comments on Monday. He spoke to reporters on the sidelines of an oil industry meeting in the Qatari capital Doha.
He declined to say when the pipeline would open, though his comments suggest it could become operational soon.
The Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline project aims to ship crude from the UAE's main oil producing region to the port of Fujairah on the country's Gulf of Oman coast.
That would allow some of the OPEC member's oil to avoid the Strait of Hormuz, access to which is shared by Iran and Oman.
Army declines comment on MP’s comment about closure
A member of the Iranian parliament's National Security Committee said on Monday that the military was set to practise its ability to close the Gulf to shipping at the narrow Strait of Hormuz, the most important oil transit channel in the world, but there was no official confirmation.
The legislator, Parviz Sarvari, told the student news agency ISNA: "Soon we will hold a military manoeuvre on how to close the Strait of Hormuz. If the world wants to make the region insecure, we will make the world insecure."
Contacted by Reuters, a spokesman for the Iranian military declined to comment.
Iran's energy minister told Al Jazeera television last month that Tehran could use oil as a political tool in the event of any future conflict over its nuclear programme.
Tension over the programme has increased since the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported on Nov. 8 that Tehran appears to have worked on designing a nuclear bomb and may still be pursuing research to that end. Iran strongly denies this and says it is developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
Iran has warned it will respond to any attack by hitting Israel and U.S. interests in the Gulf and analysts say one way to retaliate would be to close the Strait of Hormuz.
About a third of all sea-borne shipped oil passed through the Strait in 2009, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), and U.S. warships patrol the area to ensure safe passage.
Most of the crude exported from Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq - together with nearly all the liquefied natural gas from lead exporter Qatar - must slip through a 4-mile (6.4 km) wide shipping channel between Oman and Iran.
Iran has closed the Straits of Hormuz for military training as was expected yesterday, according to RanSquawk. Oil, and all other commodities, are outtahere.
And for those curious about more, RanSquawk speculates that the source of the data is a report in the Tehran Times saying that Iran will hold War Games in which it would close the Straits. Unclear if this is what Ran referenced when they said the Straits were already closed.
TEHRAN - MP Parviz Sorouri of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee has said that Iran plans to practice its ability to close the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most strategically important chokepoints, which accounts for about 30% of the world’s seaborne oil shipments.
“Currently, the Middle East region supplies 70 percent of the world’s energy needs, (most of) which are transported through the Strait of Hormuz. We will hold an exercise to close the Strait of Hormuz in the near future. If the world wants to make the region insecure, we will make the world insecure,” ISNA quoted Sorouri as saying on Tuesday.
After threatening to practice drills meant to close the crucial Strait of Hormuz, rumors had Iran shutting the strait down and oil prices went crazy.
ZeroHedge reported real-time analyst Ransquawk confirmed the straight was closed and it was enough to send traders scrambling, but there has been no confirmation of the news and the reports look increasingly unlikely.
The rumors are enough, however, for oil prices to have seen a significant spike beginning just before 10 a.m. EDT.
After threatening to practice drills meant to close the crucial Strait of Hormuz, rumors had Iran shutting the strait down and oil prices went crazy.
ZeroHedge reported real-time analyst Ransquawk confirmed the straight was closed and it was enough to send traders scrambling, but there has been no confirmation of the news and the reports look increasingly unlikely.
The rumors are enough, however, for oil prices to have seen a significant spike beginning just before 10 a.m. EDT.
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