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Iranian Bomb Boat Targeted Sonangol Tanker off Kuwait

Sonangol Namibe
Damage to the Sonangol Namibe (social media)

Published Mar 5, 2026 6:23 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

New footage appears to suggest that Iranian forces used a drone boat to attack the tanker Sonangol Namibe off the coast of Kuwait.

The tanker was at anchor about 30 nm to the southeast of Kuwait's Mubarak al Kabeer port on Wednesday night when an explosion occurred on the port side. The hull was penetrated and the ship has taken on water, according to UKMTO. However, there were no injuries, and the blast did not start a fire, according to the security agency.

The vessel was in ballast at the time of the blast, but satellite imaging taken the day after the strike shows a small petroleum slick emanating from the tanker. 

The strike expanded the proven kinetic risk zone to the far northeastern end of the Gulf, confirming the possibility of an Iranian strike at any location within the area. It also showed that the threat picture for shipping will continue to include surface attacks, even though Iran's larger combatant vessels have substantially been eliminated by U.S. forces. 

Iran is a longtime operator of unmanned bomb boats: it began providing the technology to Yemen's Houthi rebel group years before the concept was adopted and developed by Ukraine. Drone boats require a different defense strategy to prevent kinetic strikes, and they are difficult to defeat in swarms, as demonstrated by the Black Sea campaign targeting Russian warships and tankers. 

The strike may have outsize importance for regional energy production. According to local Basra News, Sonangol Namibe was due to call at an Iraqi loading terminal to take on oil. Iraq is so short on shoreside storage space that it has begun to shut in production; A proven threat to tanker tonnage in Iraq has more immediate implications for the global crude oil supply than a similar threat in Saudi Arabia or the UAE, as Iraq's tank farm capacity is low and any production shut-in will take weeks to restart.