,
12 tweets,
7 min read
Read on Twitter
One injured among among the 21 crew of Kokuka Courageous IMO 9568495. None among the 23 crew from Front Altair IMO 9745902 after explosion and fire. Yet another mysterious attack on shipping off UAE's port of Fujaira. Can John Bolton restrain himself to 280 characters? 
Iran is taking the initiative by evacing sailors. "suspicious doesn't begin to describe what likely transpired this morning". Event occurred while Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameneni is meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tehran. telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/06/1…
Iranian news agencies are all over the story. Iran views the incident as directly linked to Abe's visit. en.isna.ir/photo/98032310…
CNN in their best "Remember The Maine" coverage says that USS Bainbridge took on board 21 mariners from the Kokuka Courageous tanker. Although CNN has not "verified" the Iranian news photos of the ship they have already decided Iran was involved. cnn.com/middleeast/liv…
@JZarif the Foreign Minister of Iran points out the timing.
@JZarif Japanese-owned Kokuka had three explosions and was carrying methanol. Marshall Islands flagged Front Altair had left Qatar and was carrying naphtha. The tabloid Daily Mail has scraped the internet for pics. dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7…
@JZarif And now the kicker....the purpose of Japanese Prime Minister Abe's visit was to reduce tension between Iran and the U.S. aljazeera.com/news/2019/06/j…
@JZarif One of the notable goofs in media coverage of this story is lack of understanding of how to attack and sink ships. Military units know exactly how to sink ships. All of these attacks have been surreptitious, at night, without proof of perpetrator, leaving an operational ship.
@JZarif Some TV learning on tankers.
@JZarif And again...the media needs to include "Israel/Iran/Arab" tensions in any timeline. Yes, America has a "recent" beef with 1979 Iran but historically Israel is the region that is eliminated and depopulated on a regular basis. theglobeandmail.com/world/article-…
@JZarif Israel (and the Arab dictators) are America's ally in the region but Bolton and Netanyahu's comical display of evidence are not convincing. War today is above all about self interest. Would we really start bombing Iran and killing young Americans just to sell more weapons?
@JZarif The previous event occurred in UAE controlled waters but is not actually blamed on Iran: "an actor with significant operational capacity, most likely a state actor" aljazeera.com/news/2019/06/u…
