The Iranian boat came within 200 yards of the USS Squall on Wednesday before the American patrol ship fired three shots.
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The Iranian ships buzzed the Nitze ignored repeated radio, whistle and flare warnings from the Nitze and slowed their approach only when they were within 300 yards of the US ship, Urban said. Finally, Squall fired three warning shots from a.50 caliber gun, after which the Iranians changed course.
The Iranian ships “created a unsafe, harassing situation that could have led to further escalation, including additional defensive measures by Nitze”, an American defense official said of the earlier incident.
He made the comments after a USA defense official said four vessels of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) have “harassed” a U.S. warship on Tuesday near the Strait of Hormuz.
In January, 10 soldiers were detained for 15 hours after two USA ships blundered into Iranian waters. “And we’re going to continue to take the steps that we need to do to make sure that our sailors and our ships are as safe as possible as they conduct their operations”, Cook explained.
The patrol craft USS Squall (PC 7) steams in the Arabian Gulf acting as a small boat threat toward guided-missile destroyer USS Mitscher during a simulated strait transit. The month before that, Iranian fired rockets near USA warships and flew drones over the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman.
Cmdr. Bill Urban of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet told Business Insider that several incidents occurred where Iranian navy ships showed wanton disregard for safety and internationally recognized maritime law.
Despite a historic nuclear deal reached between the US, Iran and other countries, tensions have steadily mounted between Washington and Tehran.
The official called the interaction “unsafe and unprofessional”. On Tuesday (23 August), four Iranian vessels had reportedly conducted “a high-speed intercept” of the destroyer, despite repeated warnings by the warship near the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf.
The warning follows an incident on Tuesday when a United States warship and Iranian ships faced off near the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf. One of the Iranian boats came within 300 yards of the Nitze.
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“If any foreign vessel enters our waters, we will give them a warning, and if it is an act of aggression, we will confront them”, Iran’s defense minister, Gen. Hossein Dehghan, defiantly declared on Thursday. Others point out that the Iranian boats would have been in trouble if the U.S. Arleigh Burke-class destroyer had chosen to escalate the situation by firing on them.
