Iranian warships in ‘ unsafe’ engagement with US Navy destroyers

Four Iranian warships sped close to two US Navy guided missile destroyers with their weapons uncovered in the Strait of Hormuz in an “unsafe and unprofessional” encounter between the longtime foes, American defense officials said.

The USS Nitze shot warning flares, sounded its whistles and attempted unsuccessfully to communicate with the Iranian boats during Tuesday’s incident, US Central Command spokesperson Commander Kyle Raines said in a statement.

He added that the Iranian vessels came within 300 yards ( meters) of the American destroyer.

The Nitze was accompanied on its mission by the USS Mason, another destroyer.

The encounter occurred in international waters in the strait, a vitally important choke point with Iran to its north and the United Arab Emirates to the south.

The destroyer had to change course to avoid a possible collision, even though it was near offshore oil rigs.

“Nitze also changed its course multiple times in close proximity to offshore oil rigs in an attempt to maintain separation and better understand Iranian intentions,” Raines said Wednesday.

When asked about the matter, Iran’s Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan said that his country’s “naval units have the duty of safeguarding the country’s security in the sea and the Persian Gulf.”

“Naturally these boats constantly monitor the developments and foreign vessels’ movements and naturally this happens in the waters of our own country. If any foreign vessel enters our waters, we will give them a warning and if it is an act of aggression, we will confront them,” he said.

This was not the first maritime scare between the US and Iran.

In January, the Iranian navy briefly captured the crews of two US patrol boats that had, through a series of blunders, strayed into Iranian territorial waters.