Page 12 - 24 May 2024 Current affairs

April 2024 Ki z
Ki z d
d
Cultivating Love for Learning

SCOPE Current Affairs

Iran seizes cargo ship linked to Israel, 17 Indian crew

on board

Iranian commandos Saturday seized an Israeli-affiliated
container ship carrying 17 Indian crew members, the latest
escalation in West Asia’s spiralling tensions which New
Delhi has now found itself caught up in.
Members of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard
rappelled down from a helicopter onto the Portuguese-
flagged MSC Aries near the Strait of Hormuz and,
according to state-run IRNA news agency, were taking the
ship into Iranian territorial waters.
The seizure followed a suspected Israeli strike this month
on an Iranian consular building in Syria’s Damascus that killed 12 people, including a senior Guard general.
Iran had vowed to avenge the strike.
The ship is associated with London-based Zodiac Maritime. Zodiac Maritime is part of Israeli billionaire Eyal
Ofer’s Zodiac Group. Geneva-based MSC later acknowledged the seizure and said a total of 25 crew
members were aboard the vessel.
IRNA said a special forces unit of the Guard’s navy carried out the attack on the ship.

Israel closes airspace as Iran launches drones in first-

ever full-scale military assault

The drone attack late Saturday marked the first time
Iran had ever launched a full-scale military assault on
Israel, despite decades of enmity dating back to the
country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
In a statement carried by Iran’s state-run IRNA news
agency, the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary
Guard acknowledged launching “dozens of drones
and missiles towards the occupied territories and
positions of the Zionist regime.” The statement did not
elaborate.
Earlier Saturday, the Israeli military said it was
canceling school and limiting public gatherings to no more than 1,000 people as a precaution.