June 19, 2017
DUBAI (Reuters) – The Saudi navy seized a boat carrying weapons as it approached the kingdom’s offshore Marjan oilfield in the Gulf on Friday evening, the official Saudi Press Agency reported on Monday.
Two other boats that also approached Marjan managed to escape after the Saudi navy fired warning shots, the agency reported. The captured boat was carrying weapons “for subversive purposes”, the brief SPA report said.
SPA had no word on the registration of the vessels or the nationality of the crew, but added without elaborating that vessels were bearing white and red flags.
There was no immediate indication whether the capture of the vessel was related to a maritime incident in the Gulf on Friday reported by Iranian media.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency said on Saturday that Saudi border guards had opened fire on an Iranian fishing boat in the Gulf on Friday, killing a fisherman. It said the boat was one of two Iranian boats fishing in the Gulf that had been pushed off course by waves.
