A group of 13 armed speedboats of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Monday made “unsafe and unprofessional” high-speed maneuvers toward US Navy vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, and a US Coast Guard cutter fired warning shots when two of the Iranian boats came dangerously close, US officials said.
It was the second time in two weeks that a US ship opened fire to warn the Iranian vessels
The encounters come as Washington and Tehran are in indirect talks in Vienna aimed at reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which the US left in 2018.
Photo: AFP / US Navy
Asked whether it appeared the Revolutionary Guard is trying to pick a fight with the US Navy, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby declined to comment on the Iranians’ intentions.
“Sadly, harassment by the IRGC Navy is not a new phenomenon. It is something that all of our commanding officers and the crews of our vessels are trained to for,” Kirby told reporters at the Pentagon. “This activity is the kind of activity that could lead to somebody getting hurt and could lead to a real miscalculation there in the region, and that doesn’t serve anybody’s interests.”
On April 26, a US warship fired warning shots when IRGC vessels came too close to a patrol in the Persian Gulf. That was the first such shooting in nearly four years.
The US Navy released black-and-white footage of that encounter in international waters of the northern reaches of the Persian Gulf near Kuwait, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
In the latest incident, Kirby said 13 Iranian vessels maneuvered at high speed toward six US Navy ships that were escorting the guided missile submarine USS Georgia through the Strait on Monday. The sub was sailing on the surface. The six navy escort ships included the guided missile cruiser USS Monterey.
A day earlier, the Monterey had intercepted an arms shipment aboard a dhow in the Arabian Sea apparently headed for Yemen, whose Houthi rebels are supported by Iran.
“They were acting very aggressively,” Kirby said of the Iranian boats.
At one point, two of the Iranian boats broke away from the others and positioned themselves on the other side of the US ship formation. The two then sped toward some of the US ships.
In an attempt to de-escalate the situation, US crews issued multiple warnings to both groups of Iranian boats, including repeated bridge-to-bridge verbal warnings, US Navy 5th Fleet spokesperson Commander Rebecca Rebarich said.
After the two Iranian boats failed to respond to the multiple warnings and closed to within 275m, the US Coast Guard cutter Maui fired a volley of warning shots from its .50-caliber machine gun. It fired another volley when the Iranian boats got within 137m.
The two Iranian boats then “altered course and increased their distance from the US forces,” Rebarich said.
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