WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iranian boats aggressively approached three U.S. Naval ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a main shipping route for Gulf oil, at the weekend and threatened that the ships would explode, U.S. officials said on Monday.
Iran dismissed U.S. concerns about the incident, saying it was a routine contact. But the Pentagon termed the Iranian actions "careless, reckless and potentially hostile" and said Tehran should provide an explanation.
“This is a very volatile area and the risk of an incident escalating is real,” U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said. “It is a reminder that there is a very unpredictable government in Tehran.”
Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff, the commander of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which is based in the Gulf, said five Iranian fast boats moved aggressively toward the U.S. ships in international waters and their actions were “unduly provocative.”
“The ships received a radio call that was threatening in nature, to the effect that they were closing on our ships and … the U.S. ships would explode,” Cosgriff told reporters at the Pentagon via videolink from his Bahrain headquarters.
The incident was the latest sign of tension between Washington and Tehran, at odds over a range of issues from Iran’s nuclear program to U.S. allegations of Iranian support for terrorism and interference in Iraq.
U.S. President George W. Bush is due to travel to the Middle East this week on a trip he has said is partly aimed at countering Iranian influence.
Cosgriff said the U.S. Navy believed the Iranian boats belonged to the country’s Revolutionary Guard and they were sometimes less than 500 yards (meters) from the U.S. ships.
In October, the United States designated the Revolutionary Guard Corps a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction and its elite Qods force a supporter of terrorism.
OIL PRICES ROSE
Oil prices briefly rose on the news about the confrontation as dealers weighed the threat to shipments along the key shipping route. Crude futures jumped 49 cents to $98.40 a barrel before slipping back.
In Tehran, the Iranian Foreign Ministry described the encounter as “ordinary” and said it had been resolved.
“This is an ordinary issue that happens for the two sides every once in a while and, after the identification of the two sides, the issue is resolved,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told Iran’s official IRNA news agency.
An “informed source” from the naval force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards was quoted by Iranian state television as saying: “There were no out of the ordinary contacts between the Guards’ naval force and American ships.”
The source said three U.S. naval ships were asked by Guards’ vessels “as usual” to identify themselves "which they did and they continued their path.
Pentagon officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said after the Iranian threats a U.S. captain was in the process of ordering sailors to open fire when the Iranian boats moved away.
According to the officials, the radio transmission from one of the Iranian ships said: “I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes.”
Cosgriff said two Iranian boats also dropped floating white boxes into the water. He offered no explanation for that move but said the U.S. ships passed the boxes safely.
Cosgriff said the U.S. Navy was very mindful of the damage small craft could do to large ships. Al Qaeda militants killed 17 U.S. sailors when they rammed an explosives-laden boat into the side of the USS Cole, a destroyer, in Aden in 2000.
The incident took place about 0400 GMT Sunday, or late Saturday night in Washington, the officials said. Cosgriff said it was daylight with “decent visibility.” The three U.S. ships were the USS Port Royal, USS Hopper and the USS Ingraham.
Last March, Iran seized 15 British sailors and marines in the Gulf and accused them of trespassing into Iranian waters. London maintained they were in Iraqi waters but the Britons were held for almost two weeks.
(Writing by Andrew Gray; Editing by David Storey)
Re: ranians threatened U.S. ships in Hormuz: Pentagon
It's like flies annoying an elephant.
If USA attacks these boats, then iranians will be crying victim all over the world.
Maybe, the Iranians are probing the defensive reactions of the US ships.
Because, small speedboats is the only thing the Iranians have in the form of a navy.
Re: ranians threatened U.S. ships in Hormuz: Pentagon
Maybe if the Iranians had just made a face the Yanks wouldn't have been so frightened over a routine check and threatened to blow everyone to kingdom come with their big guns...
Seems to every solution nowadays, every American can think of only one thing: Blowing 'em up...
Maybe they wouldn't be so gun happy about everything if the shoe were on the other foot...
The list of those who are less than fully confident in the Pentagon’s video/audio mashup of aggressive maneuvers by Iranian boats near American warships in the Strait of Hormuz now includes the Pentagon itself.
Unnamed Pentagon officials said on Wednesday that the threatening voice heard in the audio clip, which was released on Monday night with a disclaimer that it was recorded separately from the video images and merged with them later, is not directly traceable to the Iranian military.
That undercuts one of the most menacing elements from the Pentagon’s assertion that Iranian forces threatened the Navy ships: The voice on the radio saying, “I am coming to you. … You will explode after … minutes.”
An alleged threat to blow up US warships “may not have come” from Iranian speedboats involved in a recent stand-off, the BBC has learned.
The voice on a Pentagon tape could instead have come from another ship in the area or a transmitter on land, senior US Navy sources told the BBC.
Re: ranians threatened U.S. ships in Hormuz: Pentagon
Why shoud Iran be responsible for the behaviour of local pranksters? The US Navy should validate where threats come from before considering opening fire.
It would have been considerable egg on the US Navy’s face if they did open fire on the Iranians, sparked a war, and then found out in the middle of the war that they’d been Punk’d!
Now, I bet that after the very highest levels of the US administration formally complained to Iran… that they won’t have the decency to formally apologise for the unjust accusations they made before the world.
The accusations against Iraq were found to be untrue only after so many thousands of unneeded deaths both on the Iraqi and American sides. I guess that we should be grateful that nobody had to die before this particular US accusation against Iran was also revealed to not be true.
Re: ranians threatened U.S. ships in Hormuz: Pentagon
After Cole the Navy is going to take movements by other boats they deem threatening very serious and the movements made by the Iranians boats were deemed just that and while they might be normal movements as claimed by Iran that doesn't mean the Navy doesn't see them as threatening. Add to the facts you have a voice over the radio at the same time saying "I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes." and a whole new level of danger is reached.
The good news is no one was killed and this incident may actually stop an accidental confrontation from occuring in the future.