US seizes Iranian fuel from ships headed to Venezuela

Washington: The United States has seized more than 1.1 million barrels of Iranian fuel that was headed to Venezuela, officials said Friday, in a high-seas handover that blocked two diplomatic adversaries from evading US economic sanctions. The transfer of fuel from four Greek-owned ships, occurring over the past several weeks, risked igniting a tit-for-tat response from Iran. This week, an Iranian military unit briefly boarded a tanker in the Gulf of Oman in what several US officials described as a show of force - and, potentially, Tehran’s efforts to reclaim any of its fuel that might be on the ship. See also US airstrike: Who was Iranian General Qasem Soleimani Photos: Pope in UAE,...