A Defense Department official told Reuters that the us ship was “harassed” by the Iranian vessels; the official charged that Iran had been “conducting a high speed intercept and closing within a short distance of Nitze, despite repeated warnings”.
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The U.S. Navy has had two close calls with aggressive Iranian attack boats this week in the Arabian Gulf.
The USS Nitze, a guided missile destroyer, was intercepted by four Iranian military boats near the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, US defense officials said.
The video shows Iranian boats evading USA flares and coming within a dangerously close distance of the Nitze.
Cook also said Iranian actions risk escalating tensions between Tehran and Washington if they fail to conduct themselves professionally.
One of the encounters resulted in a USA ship firing warning shots at an Iranian patrol boat with a.50 caliber machine gun to ward off a unsafe approach, according to the service.
U.S. Navy Cmdr. Bill Urban, a spokesman for the Navy’s 5th Fleet, said that on August 15, seven IRGC vessels had fired rockets in “close proximity” to the two destroyers.
U.S. Navy video of the Nitze incident showed an American sailor firing flares and sounding the warship’s horn as the Iranian boats approached.
The incidents came the day after Iranian ships made similar hostile maneuvers around the destroyer USS Nitze in the Strait of Hormuz, and came within 300 yards of the US ship. “And that is to take appropriate steps to try and de-escalate the situation”, he added, noting that the shots fired from the USS Squall forced the Iranian vessels to leave. The month before that, Iranian fired rockets near US warships and flew drones over the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman. The official wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly so spoke anonymously.
As two of the vessels sped toward them, the Nitze sounded the maritime danger signal and fired ten warning flares.
Iranian General Hosein Dehghan responded to the incident on Iranian state media, saying, “if any foreign vessel enters our waters, we warn them, and if it’s an invasion, we confront”. Gen. Hossein Dehghan, said Iranian craft are constantly on patrol in the Gulf to prevent intrusions into Iran’s territorial waters.
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These close encounters have included Iranian rocket launches, drones flying over USA vessels and the capture of U.S. sailors in January.
