A USA defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the USS Squall patrol craft fired three warning shots from a.50 caliber gun in the northern Gulf on Wednesday after warning flares did not work.
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The USS Squall “resorted to firing three warning shots from their 50-caliber gun, which caused the Iranian vessel to turn away”, Navy spokesman Bill Urban said. “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.
According to U.S. Navy Cmdr.
But Iran’s defense minister warned that Iranian forces would respond to any foreign ships entering its territorial waters.
In January, 10 US sailors aboard two patrol craft were detained by the IRGC when they inadvertently entered Iranian territorial waters.
“If any foreign vessel enters our waters, we warn them, and if it’s an invasion, we confront”, Gen. Hosein Dehghan said via Tehran’s official news agency.
Four Iranian ships made reckless maneuvers close to a US warship this week, the Pentagon said Thursday, in an incident that officials said could have led to risky escalation. In mid-July, Iranian craft harassed the USS New Orleans as it played host to General Joseph Votel, who, as the commander of U.S. Central Command, is the top U.S. military commander in the Middle East.
On Tuesday, four IRGC patrol craft conducted a “high-speed intercept” of the USS Nitze in waters near the Straits of Hormuz.
A U.S. Navy ship fired three warning shots Wednesday to fend off Iranian fast boats’ harassing behavior in the northern Persian Gulf in a third incident of “unprofessional” Iranian actions near American warships in two days, a Pentagon spokesman said. The Stout “maneuvered away” from the vessel after it approached closely three times, Urban said.
Four of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps vessels “harrassed” the USS Nitze – coming within 300 yards – the day before.
In January, the Iranian navy arrested the crews of two USA patrol boats that had trespassed into Iranian territorial waters.
This was not the first maritime scare between the United States and Iran.
A similar incident in January resulted in the arrest of 10 U.S. marines, who were quickly freed after urgent diplomatic negotiations between Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and his USA counterpart John Kerry.
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The U.S. Navy has had two close calls with aggressive Iranian attack boats this week in the Arabian Gulf.
