Egypt said on Thursday that a drone attack caused a fire on board a US-owned gas storage tanker and another ship at the key Mediterranean port of Damietta.
The cabinet said it would take the “necessary measures to protect Egypt's interests and safeguard its national security”. It added that no one had claimed responsibility for the attack, which happened on Wednesday.
Security sources said an examination of the wreckage established that the attack was carried out by at least two drones.
The attack, they said, has prompted a high-level investigation by Egyptian military experts into how the drones penetrated several layers of air-defence systems.
Damietta's port is a major energy centre that is high up in the country's economic plan and known to be heavily guarded.
The sources said Egypt's response to the attack, when the perpetrator is known, would probably be restrained to avoid further escalation of the Iran-US war that has already spiralled beyond the two adversaries to include several countries in the region.
There is speculation that Iran or its proxies in Iraq and Yemen could have been behind the drone attack. The sources said contact had been established with Iranian officials to determine who was responsible.
Egypt is one of four countries – with Pakistan, Qatar and Turkey – that have been mediating to end the Iran-US war that broke out in February. A close US ally, Egypt has been in regular contact with Iranian leaders in a bid to restore a June ceasefire that collapsed this month.
“Egypt will take the necessary diplomatic steps to ensure that this doesn't happen again,” said one of the sources about the Damietta attack.
“But for the greater good of the region, it will not retaliate. There is so much at stake right now in the region and an escalation will not help anyone.”
Relations between Egypt and Iran have been fraught for more than four decades after the 1979 Islamic revolution. They thawed in recent years, but the pair have yet to restore full diplomatic ties.
Egyptian and Iranian leaders have been in regular contact over the Gaza and US-Iran wars, with Cairo putting to good use its channels of communication with Tehran and its proxies in the region.
Egypt's working relations with Iran, however, did not stop it from strongly condemning Tehran's attacks on its neighbours, including Cairo's Gulf allies who have traditionally been its main financial backers.
The tone of those statements, however, have significantly hardened in recent days, possibly in response to the escalation by Tehran and its proxies in Iraq and Yemen.
Egypt initially said on Wednesday that a fire broke out on board the floating storage tanker Energos Winter in Damietta and spread to another vessel. It made no mention of a drone attack first reported by a British maritime security firm, Ambrey.
The Energos Winter is a floating storage and regasification unit, owned by American company Energos Infrastructure. Its technical, safety and commercial operations are managed by Wilhelmsen Ship Management, also a US company. The second vessel is used to turn liquid fuel into gas.
The incident, on which US President Donald Trump said he had been briefed, came amid an escalation in the conflict, with Iran firing missiles at US forces in Jordan and the US and Saudi Arabia striking Iran-backed groups in Iraq.
Alongside Yemen's Houthis declaring a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, the latest exchanges suggest the conflict is spreading further than it has since the US and Israel started bombing Iran in February.
The US retaliated against Iran on Thursday after Tehran fired on American troops. Mr Trump had indicated the retaliation was coming.
“So it's our turn,” he said at the White House. Washington would see if an agreement could be reached with Iran at some point, “but we're going to hit them very hard”, he added.
Iran said overnight that it had fired on US bases in Jordan and at ships in the Strait of Hormuz, and also spurned an Omani proposal to jointly manage the strait.
The Egyptian Petroleum Ministry said on Wednesday that the fire was under control, with no casualties reported. Petroleum Minister Karim Badawi inspected the site last night.
Kpler, an energy analytics firm, said the two ships had been damaged and “operations disrupted” at Damietta, one of Egypt's main terminals for importing gas. It said both were moved offshore as authorities assessed the situation. The port authority said on Thursday that operations at the facility were proceeding normally.
