Strikes hit oil storage facilities in Oman, says maritime security firm

Oil storage facilities have been hit by drone strikes at Oman's Salalah port, according to local officials and British maritime security firm Ambrey .

A security source cited by Oman News Agency reported that several drones were shot down, but one slipped through and struck the port's fuel tanks. They added that no casualties were reported.

Ambrey said that no damage to merchant vessels had been reported.

Shipping giant Maersk announced earlier on its website that it was suspending all operations "until further notice," citing an ongoing incident near the general cargo terminal.

Maersk did not provide further details about the nature of the incident and footage circulated online appeared to show the port ablaze.

The developments comes amid Iran attacks of US interests in the Gulf region following the US-Israeli assault on the country which has killed over 1,300 people.

Earlier on Wednesday, Iran's military vowed  to launch strikes against US and Israeli economic targets in the region, including banks, after overnight attacks reportedly hit an Iranian bank.

It urged people across the region to refrain from going within a kilometre of banks. Iranian media said US and Israeli strikes hit a bank in Tehran overnight, killing an unspecified number of employees.

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At the same time, it has denied deliberately targeting oil facilities and infrastructure in its neighbouring Arab Gulf states.

Last week, editor-in-chief of Independent Arabia suggested in a television interview on Tuesday that not all attacks on the Gulf states may be coming from Iran, and that the US and Israel could lure them into the war, only to later abandon them.

Adhwan al-Ahmari, a Saudi journalist and political analyst, highlighted numerous unverified claims of false-flag attacks in the Riyadh-based Asharq News. 

"Some believe this war is an American-Israeli trap to implicate the Gulf countries and draw them into a confrontation with Iran," Ahmari said.

"This hypothesis, I think, increases every day," he added, alluding to an erosion of trust between Washington and its allies in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). 

On Wednesday, Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said expressed dissatisfaction and condemned attacks targeting Omani territory during a phone call with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian,  Oman’s state news agency reported.