Sources said that 17 of the 25 crew members on board the container ship seized by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards off the UAE coast on Saturday are Indians.

According to the country’s official IRNA news agency, the container ship MCS Aries was captured while conducting a “heliborne operation” near the Strait of Hormuz, and is now headed for Iranian territorial waters.

The seizure of the ship comes amid heightened tensions in the Middle East. There are fears of an attack on Israel by Iran, which has vowed to retaliate for an airstrike on the consular section of its embassy in Damascus, Syria, nearly two weeks ago. Seven people, including two generals, were killed in the airstrike.

Iran has said that this ship belongs to the Zionist regime (Israel) in the Gulf. Two websites that track shipping traffic, vesselfinder.com and marinetraffic.com, said MSC Aries is a Portuguese-flagged container ship and its last reported position was in the Gulf.

“A container ship named MCS Aries was captured by the Guards Navy Special Forces while conducting a heliborne operation,” IRNA agency reported.

It said the operation was carried out “near the Strait of Hormuz” – between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman – which is vital for global trade, and that “the ship was now diverted to Iran’s territorial waters.” Is”.