The Marshall Islands’ ship Maersk Tigris was reportedly forced from the Strait of Hormuz to Iranian waters.
Less than a week after a convoy of Iranian cargo and military vessels were turned away from the coast of Yemen by a U.S. Navy armada, a cargo ship belonging to a U.S. protectorate and traveling near Iran was fired upon by an Iranian coast guard vessel operating under its elite Revolutionary Guard Corps, forcing the ship to leave an international shipping lane and reroute deep into Iranian waters.
The situation will likely provide additional fodder to those who criticize the White House’s ongoing rapprochement with Iran as naive and dangerous. However, this isn’t the first instance of Iranian sailors’ adventurism on their regional seas.
U.S. Naval Forces Central Command received a distress call from the Maersk Tigris, flagged to the Marshall Islands, early Tuesday morning as it was traveling through the chokepoint of the Strait of Hormuz. Crew members aboard the ship said a patrol vessel with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy made contact at roughly 4 a.m. local time and ordered the Maersk Tigris to redirect toward Larak Island, near the Iranian coast.
The Maersk Tigris crew initially refused, so the Iranian vessel fired multiple shots across the bridge of the cargo ship.
The U.S. Navy has dispatched a yet unspecified aircraft and the USS Farragut, a destroyer sailing nearby, to head toward the region to observe.
No Americans were on board, according to the Department of Defense.
Many key elements of the situation remain unknown early Tuesday, but the incident certainly does not help already tense relations between the U.S. and Iran.
“It is inappropriate,” Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren said of Iran’s actions.
American officials have openly blamed the predominantly Shiite nation for meddling in active war zones, including in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State group, in Lebanon through its alliedHezbollah militant political party, and in Yemen where it is believed to support the Houthi uprising.
A convoy of Iranian cargo ships was heading toward Yemen last week, and was joined by two Iranian warships on Friday. The U.S. Navy deployed the USS Theodore Roosevelt supercarrier, among other vessels, to also sail to the area. Pentagon officials would not say the action was designed to pose a direct affront to Iran, believed to be smuggling weapons or other supplies to the Houthis currently waging war against the government of Yemen. But the Iranian ships turned back toward their home ports on Friday, and as of Tuesday morning had rounded the northeast corner of Oman.
Tuesday’s standoff also comes amid shaky negotiations between the Obama administration and the Iranian government over its nuclear program. Obama did not discuss the incident during a press conference Tuesday afternoon with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Iran’s state news service, Fars, in a story early Tuesday identified the vessel it engaged as U.S.-owned, citing anonymous “informed sources” who said there may be Americans aboard. The ship was trespassing on Iran’s territorial waters, the report stated, and was seized at the request of Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organization, or IPMO.
An “Iranian warship” was escorting the vessel to the port city of Bandar Abbas.
Top Iranian leaders have not issued any public statements about the incident. A Twitter account believed to reflect the thinking of Ayatollah Khamenei tweeted since the incident began, continuing what is now a string of criticism over police use of force in the U.S. – most recently in Baltimore.
The Pentagon did not have a specific update Tuesday morning on the whereabouts of the Maersk Tigris, or what authority the USS Farragut would have when it arrives nearby.
However, website MarineTraffic.com, which tracks the routes and locations of publicly listed ships,shows the path of the Maersk Tigris up to the Strait of Hormuz, an abrupt shift in course and its current position just off the Iranian coast.
View the original content and more from this author here: http://ift.tt/1JPmqJe
from critical infrastructure alliance http://ift.tt/1OFbDZ2
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment