Bomb attacks on ships in the Middle East from Oman are not a new phenomenon.
Sixty years before the attack on Zodiac Maritime's 49,992-dwt tanker Mercer Street (built 2013), a passenger liner was sunk killing more than a quarter of the 819 people on board.
A massive explosion that was believed, but not proven, to have been caused by an Omani rebel group, ripped through the 5,030-gt liner Dara on 8 April 1961, causing the death of 238 as the ship burnt and sank.
