CAIRO — United States Navy commandos seized a renegade tanker carrying illicit Libyan oil in the Mediterranean southeast of Cyprus on Monday, thwarting a breakaway militia’s attempt to sell the oil on the black market. No shots were fired, no one was injured and the commandos captured three armed Libyans described by the ship’s captain as hijackers.
The predawn raid, carried out by about two dozen members of the Navy SEALs using high-speed boats from a nearby destroyer, rescued the fragile transitional government in Tripoli from a potentially catastrophic loss of control over its main source of revenue and last source of power: Libya’s vast oil reserves.
The tanker had threatened to uncork those reserves by enabling a militia that has blockaded Libya’s major oil ports for the last eight months to begin selling the oil on its own, independent of the state. The government in Tripoli sputtered with furious warnings of retribution but appeared powerless to stop the shipment. Flying a North Korean flag as cover but reportedly owned by an Arab shipping company, the tanker, called the Morning Glory, left the Libyan port of Sidra unmolested last week with a hull full of illicit oil.
The State Department warned last week that it considered the shipment a “theft from the Libyan people” and noted that, along with the Libyan government, several American companies also have stakes in the oil.
Since then, the Pentagon said in a statement on Monday, the governments of Libya and Cyprus had requested American assistance in apprehending the tanker. President Obama authorized the operations just after 10 p.m. Sunday in Washington, the statement said.
Within 10 minutes — before dawn Monday over the Mediterranean — the SEALs launched their boats from the Roosevelt, a guided-missile destroyer, which also provided backup support from a shipboard helicopter.
Quickly fanning out across the Morning Glory, the SEALs captured and disarmed the three Libyans described by the tanker’s crew as hijackers, American officials said. The mission was completed within two hours of boarding, they added.
The official said the three Libyans would be in United States custody until the tanker returned to Libya, in about four days.
Officials said maritime records indicated the ship was owned by a company based in the United Arab Emirates but operated by a company based in Saudi Arabia. They said the 21-person crew was composed of six Pakistanis, six Indians, three Sri Lankans, two Syrians, two Sudanese and two Eritreans.
