The comments came shortly after it was revealed that an American vessel was harassed by Iran for the second time this week.
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The USS Tempest and USS Squall were “operating in worldwide waters of the northern Arabian Gulf when three IRGCN [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy] vessels approached at high speed”.
A U.S. Navy patrol boat was forced to fire three warning shots at Iranian vessels less than 24 hours after another USA missile carrier was “harassed” in an “unsafe manor”.
After the Iranian vessel ignored signal flares and radio messages advising it to steer clear of the USA and Kuwaiti ships, the USS Squall fired three warning shots.
The three vessels had been traveling in formation when they were approached by a Naser-class Iranian Revolutionary Guard Navy water craft at high speed, according to USA officials.
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.
A U.S. Navy ship fired warning shots toward an Iranian fast-attack craft that approached two U.S. ships, a Pentagon spokesman said on Thursday, in the most serious of a number of incidents in the Gulf area this week.
The Iranians allegedly came as close as 300 yards (274 meters) of the Nitze during the encounter. The sailors and ships were released after the USA apologized for the “unintentional” incident.
They come against the backdrop of renewed United States diplomatic contacts with Iran.
The Nitze and U.S. Naval Forces Central Command assessed the interaction as unsafe and unprofessional.
When it comes to military operations involving Iran and the USA, it would be fair to say that discretion is the better part of valour.
Iran’s defence minister said on Thursday four of his country’s vessels accused of harassing a USA warship were only doing their job, and Tehran would contront any American ship that entered its waters.
The patrol craft USS Squall (PC 7) transits in the Gulf acting as a small boat threat towards the guided-missile destroyer USS Mitscher (DDG 57) during a simulated strait transit while participating in Spartan Kopis 15-01 on January 14, 2015. The official wasn’t authorized to discuss the incident publicly so spoke anonymously. The destroyer, capable of much higher speeds than the Naser, maneuvered away from the vessel to avoid collision and, Urban added, “employed devices to discourage the IRGCN vessel from continuing their approach towards Stout”.
All three encounters Wednesday occurred in worldwide waters in the northern Persian Gulf, Urban said.
Tensions nearly spilled over in January when Iran detained a group of 10 US Navy sailors who had seemingly erred into Iranian waters accidentally on launches. The IRGCN boats responded to neither bridge-to-bridge hails nor maritime danger signals from the ship’s whistle. He added that Iranian boats patrol to monitor traffic and foreign vessels in its territorial waters.
Long-standing USA tensions with Iran over Tehran’s support for militant groups across the Middle East have not dissipated in the wake of the 2015 deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program.
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Disturbing news broke Thursday that for the third time in a week US Navy ships in or near the Persian Gulf were harassed by vessels maned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
