Uncertainty Surrounds Possible Attack on Oman's Strait of Hormuz Lighthouse
Uncertainty surrounds suggestions made that Iran has mounted an attack on navigational aids mounted on the Omani-owned Didamar Island, one of three islands which sit 10nm north of the tip of the Musandam peninsula, mid-channel between the Omani mainland and the median point in the Strait of Hormuz with Iran.
In peacetime, Didamar Island hosts the Hormuz Control Centre manned by the Royal Navy of Oman, which marshals marine traffic moving through the channels of the Traffic Separation Scheme - parts of which lie in Omani territorial waters. The slab of rock hosts a radio communications tower for radio relay and Channel 16 communications, a lighthouse, and a marine radar mounted on a 25m tower; these are important navigational aids for all ships transiting the Strait, and are maintained by Arabian Maritime and Navigation Aids Services (AMMAS), part of a network of buoys, lights and aids helping mariners navigate the Strait.
Reports of an attack seem to be based on two sources. In the first, a social media video taken at some range, smoke can be seen rising from Didamar Island. But it is not clear whether smoke is arising from the island itself, or from a stricken tanker behind and in the lee of the island. In support though, the Iranian Fars News Agency claimed that navigational aids had been struck on the ‘southern reefs’, supposedly because they had been aiding the ‘unauthorized’ transit of ships through the Strait.
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In contradiction of these reports, a senior Omani official told the Maritime Executive that navigational aids on Didamar Island had not been struck. Moreover, satellite imagery taken on the morning of November 10 does not show any obvious signs of damage to the lighthouse or the radio and radar masts, though damage to the masts might be difficult to pick up in the imagery of the available resolution.
Oman attempts to play a strictly neutral role in the conflict going on in the Strait. It respects the right of innocent passage through its waters, and is neither facilitating nor blocking those who wish to exercise that right of innocent passage. It is also almost continuously engaged in coming to the aid of ships which have been attacked, and in rescuing crews and wounded mariners, notwithstanding the dangers of Iranian follow-up attacks on targets which have been disabled. An Iranian attack on Didamar would therefore have been be a further grave breach of Omani sovereignty, to add to the IRGC transgressions that have taken place against ships in Omani territorial waters and against Omani port facilities in Duqm and Salalah.
