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An explosion rocked the liquid natural gas terminal at Egypt’s Damietta Port as cargo was being unloaded on July 29 afternoon.
According to the Ambrey global security company, a drone hit a United States-owned gas storage tanker, with no injuries reported.
Meanwhile, port services firm Inchcape said in a separate statement that two gas tankers had caught fire at Damietta Port.
The drone hit floating storage tanker Energos Winter, causing a fire that then spread to another vessel, Gaslog Salem, Reuters reported, citing three trading sources familiar with the incident. Two separate security sources say the cause of the blast was a drone strike.
Later, the Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources confirmed that a fire had broken out aboard two vessels at Damietta Port, saying in a statement that the situation has been brought under control and that no injuries or human losses have been recorded.
The attack came amid major escalation in the region. Iran resumed strikes after a four-day lull overnight, launching missiles at an air base in Jordan housing American forces. Later in the early morning, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia launched strikes against armed factions backed by the Islamic Republic in Iraq. At least 20 people were killed, with later reports revealing that the casualties included five Iranian military advisors from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
President Donald Trump has since said the U.S. is going to “beat the fucking shit” out of Iran in response to the overnight missile strike.
“We’ll be hitting them hard. They’re going to get a beating,” Trump told Fox News in a phone interview just before the news about the attack in Egypt broke out.
Trump called the Iran strike a “surprise attack” in which American troops had just minutes to shoot down incoming missiles.
Commenting on the strikes in Iraq, Trump claimed they were coordinated with the Iraqi government. He called Iran-backed armed factions there a “cancer on the world.”
The attack on Damietta Port marked the first time Egypt has come under fire since the start of the conflict with Iran. While it is possible that the attack was carried out by the Islamic Republic or one of its regional allies, it is also plausible that the attack was orchestrated by another side attempting to incite Cairo—which has so far adopted a moderate stance on the conflict—against Tehran.
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