U.S. Navy Seals have boarded and taken full control of a rogue North Korean tanker that had loaded crude oil at a port held by rebels in eastern Libya, the Pentagon said Monday.
There were no injuries or casualties "when U.S. forces, at the request of both the Libyan and Cypriot governments, boarded and took control of the commercial tanker Morning Glory, a stateless vessel seized earlier this month by three armed Libyans," Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby said in a statement, according to AFP.
Last week, former Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan ordered the arrest of the tanker's crew and threatened to bomb it if it exported any oil from the rebel-controlled port, the BBC reported.
Militants claim they began loading oil on to the tanker at a port east of Tripoli after it docked last week.. Rebels have seized three ports since August, an act which the Libyan government calls an “act of piracy.”
