Oman Reports Unclaimed Attacks on Its Territory, Raising Regional Concerns

Oman's foreign ministry condemned drone attacks on its territory and declared that no party had claimed responsibility, even as Iran's Revolutionary Guards told a different story through Iranian state media.

The contradiction sits at the center of a widening security crisis around Salalah port, a critical transshipment hub on the Arabian Sea. On Saturday, a drone struck the facility, injuring one worker and prompting Danish container shipping group Maersk to temporarily halt its operations there. The foreign ministry said authorities were investigating the attacks' "sources and motives" but offered no further details and did not specify which incident its statement addressed.

The weekend strike was the second major drone attack on Salalah in less than three weeks. On March 11, drones struck oil storage facilities at the port. After that earlier incident, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke directly with Oman's sultan by phone and said the matter would be investigated. No findings were made public before the second attack occurred.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Saturday, via Iranian media, that they had targeted a U.S. support vessel at a "considerable" distance from Salalah port. In the same statement, the Guards asserted that "the national sovereignty of our brotherly and friendly country Oman is respected by the Islamic Republic of Iran." Neither U.S. military nor U.S. State Department confirmation of the IRGC's account appeared in available reporting.

Maersk's decision to suspend operations underscores the commercial weight of the situation. Salalah is a major waypoint on shipping lanes linking Asia, Europe, and East Africa, and a halt by one of the world's largest container carriers signals how seriously the industry is reading the security environment. The duration of the suspension and the number of vessels affected were not immediately specified.

Oman has for decades cultivated a studied neutrality in the region, serving as an informal diplomatic back-channel between Washington and Tehran. The fact that drone attacks have now struck Omani port infrastructure twice within eighteen days, with no group formally claiming the strikes and Iran simultaneously asserting it respects Omani sovereignty while claiming strikes nearby, puts Muscat in an increasingly untenable position. Whether Saturday's attack and the March 11 strike are connected remains publicly unaddressed by Omani authorities.