A day after four Iranian boats harassed a destroyer in the Persian Gulf, a similar squad of vessels came after three more U.S. ships on Wednesday, according to a U.S. Navy spokesman.
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A US official said four Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps vessels conducted a high-speed intercept and came within a short distance of the guided missile destroyer USS Nitze despite repeated radio warnings near the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday.
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told reporters Thursday that the Iranian boat came within 182 meters (200 yards) of the USS Tempest and ignored several bridge-to-bridge radio calls and warning flares.
Another interaction took place between an Iranian and USA ship on Wednesday, the defense official said but gave few more details. As you pointed out, the USS Squall firing three warning shots at an Iranian vessel that engaged the United States patrol.
“My understanding is they did feel compelled to fire two warning shots”, after they “had taken other steps”, including firing flares to warn the Iranian ships away.
Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan said Thursday that the ships had only been carrying out their regular duties monitoring foreign ships near Iranian waters.
The following day, there reportedly were two more encounters between American ships in worldwide waters and Iranian vessels.
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.
The Iranian boats closed to within 300 yards of the Nitze before slowing and diverting course, according to the official who described it “as unsafe and unprofessional”. “Our ships have been operating in that part of the world for years”.
Those encounters followed an incident August 24 in which four Iranian fast attack craft approached the Arleigh Burke-class DDG USS Nitze at high speeds during a routine transit of the narrow Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf.
The shots “were fired well in advance of the vessels”, Urban said, adding that Squall took efforts to make sure the shots were fired clear of both the Iranian vessel and civilian traffic. The move heralded a change in relations between the U.S. and Iran.
Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said the three American ships were operating in worldwide waters as normal and said that the crews deemed the incidents that occurred on Wednesday unsafe and unprofessional.
The semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted Gen. Hosein Dehghan as saying that “if any foreign vessel enters our waters, we warn them, and if it’s an invasion, we confront”.
It was not the first time the secretary of state has called out the Iranians for meddling in the affairs of other Middle Eastern nations.
Cook said the “onus here is on the Iranians to conduct themselves in a safe and professional manner like navies all over the world do”.
At the same time, the Nitze also used visual warnings, firing 10 flares in the direction of the approaching vessels.
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The 10 American sailors were released within 24 hours.
