Navy ship fires shots to warn Iranian vessel

Pentagon calls episode unsafe, illegal behavior.

After reckless maneuvers by Iranian ships close to U.S. ships, a U.S. vessel fires warning shots at an Iranian craft in the Arabian Gulf.

Tensions escalated this week between the Iranian and U.S. militaries in the Persian Gulf area over what the Pentagon called an episode of unsafe and illegal behavior by Iran’s patrol boats, which it said had harassed two Navy guided-missile destroyers in international waters.

The episode, disclosed by Cmdr. Kyle Raines, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, underscored the perennial risk of confrontation between Iran and the United States in the Gulf, where both countries have extensive naval operations.

Iran said the Americans had trespassed in the episode, which happened Tuesday.

It came seven months after Iran briefly detained 10 U.S. sailors whose patrol boats had strayed into Iranian territorial waters, just before the international agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear activities took effect.

There were unconfirmed reports Thursday of a second episode, in which a U.S. warship was said to have fired warning shots at Iranian vessels harassing U.S. and Kuwaiti vessels.

Describing the Tuesday episode, Raines said in a statement that Iranian vessels from the navy of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps ignored warning flares, whistles and radio messages from the USS Nitze while approaching the warship at a high speed. The Iranian vessels came within about 300 yards of the Nitze before veering off, he said.

Unsure of Iranian intentions, the Nitze changed course several times during the encounter to try to keep a safe distance from offshore oil rigs in the area, he said.

“We assessed the interaction as unsafe and unprofessional, due to the Iranian vessels’ not abiding by international law and internationally recognized maritime rules of the road, as well as their high rate of closure of Nitze and disregard of multiple warnings by the ship’s whistle and flares,” Raines said.

Responding Thursday, Iran rejected the U.S. version of events. The country’s defense minister, Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehghan, said the Iranian boats patrolled only Iran’s territorial waters and had a mission to “counter any unintentional or aggressive intrusion.”

The U.S. naval presence in the Persian Gulf has prompted anger and resentment in Iran since the 1979 revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed monarchy, and the Revolutionary Guards have warned they could close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital transit route for Persian Gulf oil.

Eugene Gholz, a public affairs professor at the University of Texas and a former Pentagon adviser, said of the maritime confrontations, “I suspect that the dangers here are tied up in the overall relationship between the U.S. and Iran.”

The Iranians concluded that the trespass was unintentional and the sailors apologized.

But photographs of the captives, with their hands behind their heads in surrender position, were distributed by Iranian news media in what appeared to be an attempt to embarrass the United States.

‘I suspect that the dangers here are tied up in the overall relationship between the U.S. and Iran.’ Eugene Gholz Public affairs professor at the University of Texas and a former Pentagon adviser

THE WASHINGTON POST