The fire that erupted in an oil tanker off the coast of Syria Saturday (Update: 3 Dead in Attack on Iranian Oil Tanker Near Syria’s Banias Port) was not caused by a military attack, but broke out due to a lack of safety precautions, according to a Syrian military official who corrected an earlier report, Iran’s Noor news agency reported Sunday.
The official Syrian news agency SANA reported that a fire had started in one of the vessel’s tanks as it was “near oil downstream” in the city of Banias in Syria’s Tartous Province. SANA cited the Syrian ministry of petroleum and mineral resources as saying that the fire “is believed to be an attack by a drone coming from the direction of Lebanese territorial waters.”
The Syrian official on Sunday categorically rejected the ministry’s report, saying that the fire had been the result of a lack of adherence to technical and safety measures during a welding operation on the tanker as it was releasing its cargo.
The three shipmates who carried out the welding job were injured in the incident, the official noted.
Medical sources told Noor news that one of the three, who suffered burns from the fire, died from his injuries. The other two are in intensive care.
Tasnim News pointed out on Sunday that many Western media outlets had “claimed that the tanker was Iranian, while others alleged that three had died in the fire in an apparent bid to either paint the incident as an Israeli attack on Iranian interests or dramatize the damage that the fire had caused.”