Iran Guards seize container ship near Strait of Hormuz

Dubai, United Arab Emirates: Commandos from Iran s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard rappelled down from a helicopter onto an Israeli affiliated contai...

Dubai, United Arab Emirates:  Commandos from Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard rappelled down from a helicopter onto an Israeli-affiliated container ship near the Strait of Hormuz and seized the vessel Saturday, the latest in a series of attacks between the two countries.

The Middle East had braced for potential Iranian retaliation over a suspected Israeli strike earlier this month on an Iranian consular building in Syria that killed 12 people, including a senior Guard general who once commanded its expeditionary Quds Force.

The wider Israeli war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip is now 6 months old and is inflaming decades-old tensions across the whole region.

Iran's state-run IRNA said a special forces unit of the Guard's navy carried out the attack on the vessel, which other media in the country widely identified as the Portuguese-flagged MSC Aries, a container ship associated with London-based Zodiac Maritime.

Zodiac Maritime is part of Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer’s Zodiac Group. Zodiac declined to comment and referred questions to MSC, which did not immediately respond.