An oil tanker was attacked off the Syrian coast in a suspected drone attack on Saturday, said Syria's oil ministry, adding that a blaze aboard the ship had been extinguished.
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The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a United Kingdom-based war monitor group, identified the fuel tanker as Iranian and said it was hit in an apparent attack.
Syria's SANA state media said the tanker had been docked outside the Baniyas port when it was allegedly hit.
Baniyas is a coastal city located on Syria's Mediterranean shoreline, roughly half the distance between Tartus and Latakia. Sitting next to it is an oil refinery – one of the largest in the country.
The Syrian oil ministry said the suspected drone attack came from Lebanese territorial waters.
Iranian journalist Hossein Dalirian, who is close to the ayatollah regime in Tehran, wrote on Twitter that two missiles fired from a drone hit the tanker and that Iran would retaliate for the attack soon.
Iran's al-Alam TV said the tanker was one of three Iranian oil tankers that had recently arrived at the Syrian oil terminal, while the semi-official news agency Tasnim denied it was Iranian.
Syria's oil resources are mostly outside of government-controlled areas but two of its refineries are operational. This makes Damascus reliant on Iran for fuel. But US Treasury sanctions have targeted a network that spanned Syria, Iran and Russia responsible for shipping oil to the Syrian government.
The report comes as frictions between Israel and Iran are spilling out into the maritime sphere, with a series of attacks recently hitting Israeli-owned vessels in the area.
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