The U.S. Navy said Thursday it was aware of a “reported attack” on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman.
Officials received two separate distress calls between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. local time (11 p.m. Wednesday and midnight ET), according to a statement from the 5th Fleet.
U.S. ships were “in the area and are rendering assistance,” the statement added.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which is run by the British navy, also put out an alert about an unspecified incident in the Gulf of Oman, adding that it was investigating.
Oil prices jumped as much as 4 percent following Thursday’s incident.
The stretch of water separates Oman and the United Arab Emirates with Iran. Tensions have risen between Tehran and Washington in recent months.
The coordinates offered for the incident by the U.K. group put it some 25 miles off the Iranian coastline.
Last month, four oil tankers from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Norway were damaged in the same area. All three countries said it was the work of a “state actor.”
Saudi Arabia and the U.S. blamed Iran, an allegation it denied.
Last week, the top commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East said that “the threat is imminent” of an attack by Iran or its proxies. The Trump administration had previously announced additional troops, an aircraft carrier strike group, Air Force bombers and Patriot missiles being sent to the Middle East.
President Donald Trump has also withdrawn from 2015’s landmark Iran nuclear agreement, has imposed sanctions that squeezed the country’s economy and designated its powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization.
Iran denies claims that it wants to attack U.S. forces, with its ambassador to the United Nations telling NBC News in May that the rhetoric coming from Washington was dangerous and mirrored the run-up to the Iraq War.
Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi called such statements “fake intelligence.”
Associated Press contributed.
