U.S. Navy officials said Tuesday that several Iranian Revolutionary Guard Navy vessels had surrounded a U.S.-flagged cargo ship, the Maersk Kensington, last Friday as it was transiting the Strait of Hormuz. No shots were fired, the Iranian vessels broke off contact, and the cargo ship proceeded without further incident.
In Tuesday’s incident, the intercepted ship was traveling through the narrow Strait, which is technically Iranian and Omani territorial waters, but under international agreement is open to foreign ships making an innocent passage, said Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman. It wasn’t clear whether the ship had strayed off course into coastal waters not protected by that agreement.
The master of the cargo ship MV Maersk Tigris had initially refused an Iranian order to move further into Iranian waters, but after the warning shots were fired the vessel complied, Warren said.
A U.S. Navy destroyer was sent to the Strait of Hormuz after Iranian patrol boats seized a Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship amid signs Tehran is stepping up harassment of commercial traffic in the gateway to the Persian Gulf, U.S. officials said.
I was on a MEU (see WestPac) where Iranians buzzed us with their dumbass little boats through the Straights of Hormuz. Why dont we just blow these pissants up?
I’m assuming that this is the Revolutionary Guards trying to screw things up internationally to throw a wrench in the nuclear talks and have some collateral if the ships near Yemen gets boarded.
Because no one wants to go to war directly with Iran. We have played cat and mouse with them for 30 years. When I was in the Gulf they would deliberately enter exclusion zones and attempt to bait us. Believe it or not, the ships transiting the straits would be very vulnerable to attacks and we would be hard pressed to attempt to prevent them. We also can’t count on many if any allies to assist us.
