Iranian tanker blacklisted by US off Lebanon, Syria coasts

The Iranian tanker Adrian Darya 1 blacklisted by the US has been off the coast of Lebanon and Syria for the past 24 hours, maritime monitors said on Monday (September 2nd).

The vessel has been zigzagging in the eastern Mediterranean since it was released from the British overseas territory of Gibraltar on August 18th, after being held for six weeks on suspicion it was delivering oil for Tehran's ally Damascus.

"The Adrian Darya 1 has stopped just 45 nautical miles west of Tripoli, Lebanon, in international waters," TankerTrackers, a maritime traffic monitoring website said.

MarineTraffic said the vessel previously known as Grace 1 was since Sunday off the coast of Syria, where US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday said it would unload.

Pompeo said he had "reliable information" it was transporting oil to Syria in defiance of wide-ranging sanctions on the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The US Department of Treasury said the vessel was "blocked property" under an anti-terrorist order, and "anyone providing support to the Adrian Darya 1 risks being sanctioned".

The declared and suspected destination of the Adrian Darya has changed multiple times since it was released from Gibraltar.

Experts on Monday said the most likely scenario was for a ship-to-ship transfer of some of the tanker's cargo of 2.1 million barrels before it headed back to Iran.

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