Fire on One of Iranian Navy’s Largest Ships Before it Sank in Gulf of Oman Caught on Video

One of the Iranian Navy’s largest support vessels, the Kharg, sank on Tuesday in the Gulf of Oman.
A fire had broken out on the 650 ft. cargo ship, designed to resupply ships at sea, during a training exercise.

The blaze, believed to have been triggered by a “fault in one of its systems”, prompted a swift evacuation of the entire crew of 400 and trainees.

Efforts by firefighters to put out the blaze proved to be futile. The ship sank 20 hours later near the port of Jask.
According to a government spokesman cited by Tasnim news agency, some 20 people received minor burn injuries. It was added that a probe was still underway.

​The incident follows a spate of mutual recriminations between Iran and Israel over attacks on cargo ships and military vessels. The verbal allegations over sea incidents fed into the already fraught relations between the adversaries.

In April, Iran accused Israel of being behind a blast using underwater mines that damaged its military vessel MV Saviz in the Red Sea.

Earlier, an Israeli cargo vessel sailing from Tanzania to India was hit by a missile in the Arabian Sea, prompting Israeli security services to point the finger of blame at Tehran.

​Another Israeli-owned cargo vessel, the MV Helios Ray, was also hit by explosions while sailing off the coast of the UAE in February.

While Israel made no official accusation at the time, unsourced reports from the Israeli media outlets Haaretz and Channel 13 at the time claimed Iran knew that the vessel was owned by an Israeli businessman.

Tehran vehemently denied the allegations, calling them an elaborate "false flag operation".