BEIRUT—Saudi Arabia’s energy minister said Monday that two Saudi oil tankers had been sabotaged and sustained “significant damage” off the coast of the United Arab Emirates on Sunday, raising new fears of escalating tensions in the region involving Iran, the two Gulf countries’ avowed enemy.

A Norwegian company reported that one of its tankers, the Andrea Victory, was also damaged in the same area Sunday. Images posted online appeared to show the ship with a ragged gash in its stern at the waterline. The United Arab Emirates said that a total of four vessels had been sabotaged near the Strait of Hormuz, the gateway to the Persian Gulf.

Neither Saudi Arabia nor the United Arab Emirates assigned blame, made public any evidence of damage to their ships or described the nature of the sabotage. In a statement, the Norwegian company, the Thome Group, said the crew of its ship had reported that “the vessel sustained hull damage after being struck by an unknown object.” Nobody was hurt, the company added, and the ship was not in danger of sinking.

Though the situation remains murky, even the hint of armed conflict sends shudders through a region already on edge from threats and counterthreats, and through a global economy heavily dependent on the free flow of oil from the gulf. Iran has threatened in recent years to block traffic through the straits, in response to Western sanctions and tensions with Saudi Arabia, but has not followed through.

“We are very worried about the risk of a conflict happening by accident, with an escalation that is unintended really on either side,” British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told reporters in Brussels on Monday. “I think what we need is a period of calm to make sure that everyone understands what the other side is thinking.”

The claim of sabotage comes as the United States is deploying an aircraft carrier, bombers and an antimissile battery to the Gulf to deter what the Trump administration has said is the possibility of Iranian aggression. The administration contends that Iran is mobilizing proxy groups in the Middle East to attack U.S. forces, though it has not offered any information to support that conclusion, as the United States is ramping up economic sanctions.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went to Brussels on Monday to discuss Iran with European Union leaders, skipping what would have been the first day of a two-day trip to Russia.

The administration recently moved to cut off Iran’s all-important oil revenues by stopping five of the country’s biggest customers from buying its oil, announcing at the same time that the United States would work with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to supply those customers with an alternative source of oil.

The U.S. pressure tactics are aimed at forcing political change in Iran. Tensions have risen since last year, when U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear accord that world powers struck with Iran. Trump reimposed broad sanctions in November.

Iran has swatted back, announcing last week it would restart the production of nuclear centrifuges and begin accumulating nuclear material again, though without withdrawing fully from the nuclear deal, which China, Russia and the European Union still support.

Amid the mutual escalations, the U.S. Maritime Administration had warned Thursday of heightened threats from Iran in the Red Sea, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Persian Gulf. It said there was an “increased possibility that Iran and/or its regional proxies” could target oil tankers, other commercial ships or military vessels belonging to the United States or its allies.

The Strait of Hormuz is the world’s most important narrow passage for oil shipments. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated in 2016 that nearly a third of all seaborne-traded crude oil and liquid petroleum products goes through the strait. Exports from major producers such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia move through the strait, so any threat of disruption is likely to alarm oil traders.

Khalid al-Falih, the Saudi oil minister, said in a statement that one of the oil tankers sabotaged Sunday was on its way to pick up Saudi oil to be delivered to the United States. He said that there were no casualties and that no oil had been spilled.

The Foreign Ministry of the United Arab Emirates said officials were investigating the events, which it said had occurred in the Gulf of Oman off the coast of Fujairah, one of the seven emirates that make up the country.

According to an Iranian state news agency, the Islamic Republic News Agency, a spokesperson for the country’s Foreign Ministry seemed to brush away any suggestions that Iran was behind the sabotage, warning “against any conspiracy orchestrated by ill-wishers to undermine stability and security in the region.”

The spokesperson, Abbas Mousavi, expressed concern about the apparent sabotage, the news agency reported, saying Monday that a “regretful incident happened for some ships on Sunday.”

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Fujairah, the emirate where the sabotage is said to have occurred, is an important fuelling point for tankers and other shipping.

Oil prices climbed by more than 2 per cent Monday in response to the reports, before falling back again.

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