2 Members of a US Navy boarding party are missing after a tanker of unknown nationality was scuttled by its crew in the Arabian Gulf.  The tanker was carrying black market Iraqi oil. Just appeared on MSNBC's ticker at the bottom of the screen. Didn't say the final destination of the tanker, or its registry.

Update: MSNBC just identified the missing sailors as being from the USS [i]Peterson[/i], a Atlantic Fleet ship out of Norfolk.

No word about if the crew of the tanker are alive or if they resisted the boarding party.

Reuters mentioned nothing about the ship being "scuttled".  Condaleeza Wright stated that the ship was grossly overloaded and may have sunk due to weather conditions (I would suppose (weather/and overloading).

There was evidently no hostile exchange between boarders and crew.

Reuters has a report of a SECOND ship smuggling Iraqi oil that was intercepted by the US.  The crew abandoned their tanker while leaving it at full power. A runaway ship!  No report on nationality of crew or registration of vessile.

Strange things happenin'!

DaMan

Are they being hit with a cyclone in the Gulf?
Their weather normally isnt bad enough to sink a dhow, much less a tanker...

[url]http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/meast/11/18/iraq.oil.ship/index.html[/url]

Oil ship sinks, U.S. sailors missing in Persian Gulf

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. Navy rescuers scoured the Persian Gulf on Sunday for two sailors missing after a ship allegedly smuggling Iraqi oil sank with them aboard, a U.S. Navy spokeswoman said.

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