Khasab, Oman: On a quiet stretch of coastline at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula, two boys were skipping stones at sunset, competing to see who could get the furthest wave into the waters. Strait of Hormuz.
The strait has the world on edge, making headlines every hour as oil tankers avoid its waters for fear of Iranian attacks.
But on a recent afternoon, as the holy month of Ramadan drew to a close, Bassa Public Beach in Khasab, Oman, offered the illusion of calm. Three cousins, Ali, Ahmed and Rashed al-Shehhi, all in their early 20s, were meeting up there with friends from a town across the border in the neighboring United Arab Emirates for a spray paint picnic.
“It’s pretty quiet here during the last 10 days of Ramadan when we break the fast,” Ahmed al-Shehhi said.
However, as people celebrated with friends, everyone on the beach knew that just on the horizon a regional war broke out.
And as the US-Israeli attack on Iran nears its one-month mark, Khasab, a sleepy fishing town, has had a front-row seat to the accompanying drama. The strait, a narrow waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil flows, has been blocked by Iran during the war.
Khasab, the capital of Musandam province in Omanit is located within an enclave cut off from the rest of the sultanate by a drunken part of the Emirates. Sometimes nicknamed the Norway of Arabia for its rocky fjords, the province is defined by a peculiar duality: stark isolation and a sometimes dangerous proximity to global trade. At Musandam’s narrowest, only 21 miles of water separate its rocks from Iran.
This proximity has shaped Khasab’s history for centuries. Long before it became a modern vantage point for spotting oil tankers and military destroyers, it was a vital supply point for Portuguese colonizers, who built forts in the 17th century to control the sea trade route.
The journey to reach Khasab from Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, feels like a slow retreat from modernity. Travelers drive 2½ hours north to reach the border, where on a recent weekend, only 1 in 4 immigration windows was open, processing a stream of Omanis heading home.
Beyond the border, the route turns into a scenic 35-minute cliffside drive, with the Gulf stretching out to the left and imposing cliffs rising sharply to the right. Far in the deep waters, massive ships idle in the coastal fog.
For the residents of Khasab, life has always sought to navigate the precarious balance between the quiet isolation of their lives and the global crosshairs near their shores.
Inside a local supermarket, there is little hint of war. Hours before the sunset prayers that will mark the breaking of their fast, Omani families and South Asian expats mill through the corridors, the air buzzing with a linguistic symphony of Arabic, Hindi and Kumzar, an indigenous language spoken by the Kumzari tribe with elements from many other languages.
Outside the supermarket, a lone police officer guards his parked car. Inside, an Indian vendor has a small stall selling hot corn and coffee. With customers still fasting, he spends the afternoon glued to his phone, watching a live Indian news broadcast of the war just a few kilometers away.
While Khasab has been largely spared Iranian attacks — a drone was shot down over the city this month — it is feeling the effects of the conflict.
Musandam’s economy relies heavily on winter and spring tourism, attracting visitors eager for boat cruises, dolphin watching and mountain hiking. But the ports have been quiet this month.
At two tour operators in the city, tables sat empty. Weekend business has been virtually non-existent, largely because it depends on foreign tourists spending the day from the neighbours. Dubai.
Muhannad al-Kumzari, a native of Khasab, said it was much quieter than usual.
“There are no activities at all because of what is happening across the sea,” he said. “If this did not happen, Khasab would at this time flourish.”
Back at Bassa Beach, friends were finishing their Iftar and packing for the evening prayer.
Across town, an Omani family and its neighbors gathered at the modest al-Mahlab bin Abi Safra mosque in Khasab Garden. Inside, elderly men stood for nightly Taraweeh prayers, while outside in the courtyard, children staged a lively game of soccer.
The men then settled into a makeshift majlis — traditional seating areas — at the mosque’s entrance. Young men moved through the crowd, pouring small cups of cardamom-spiced Arabic coffee and sweet tea.
At first, the conversation was indistinguishable from any other neighborhood chat in the Bay, with good-natured gossip.
But in Khasab, the outside world always interferes. Eventually, the conversation turned to nearby military attacks.
For the elderly, the tension was a familiar memory. Abdullah Alflaiti, a 65-year-old retired civil servant, recalled the “tanker wars” of the 1980s, a devastating chapter of the Iran-Iraq War when the waters of the strait became a shooting gallery for merchant ships, prompting US naval intervention.
“This too will pass”, said Alflaiti. “God save us all”.
