Iran posts video; Britain warns of consequences
Iran posted a video Saturday showing masked men descending from a helicopter onto the deck of the British tanker that was seized by Iranian forces in the Strait of Hormuz, as Britain warned of “serious consequences” should Iran fail to release the vessel.
In the video, posted by the semiofficial Iranian Fars news agency, uniformed men wearing black ski masks are seen gathered in the helicopter as fastboats encircle the Stena Impero tanker, its name clearly visible on the hull. In footage filmed from one of the boats, five men are then seen descending onto the deck of the vessel as a voice off camera shouts “God is Great.”
Iran’s seizure of the tanker Friday night constitutes the most serious escalation yet since Iran shot down an American drone near the waterway a month ago, prompting President Donald Trump to consider, then call off, a direct strike on Iran.
The publication of the video helped sustain the revived tension in the Persian Gulf region, where Iran increasingly seems intent on provoking a showdown with the West.
The spokesman of Iran’s Guardian Council, Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, was quoted as saying Friday’s interdiction of the Stena Impero tanker was “reciprocal action” in response to Britain’s detention earlier this month of an Iranian supertanker in the Mediterranean.
Kadkhodaei’s remarks, reported by Fars, also denounced the “illegitimate economic war” on Iran, an apparent reference to the harsh new sanctions imposed by the Trump administration that are designed to force Tehran to renegotiate the 2015 nuclear deal, reached under the Obama administration.
The Guardian Council, a powerful group that oversees internal matters such as elections, rarely comments on international affairs. But its declarations about the tanker seizure possibly reflect the views of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and a willingness by Iran’s rulers to step up the brinkmanship.
Earlier, Iran said the Stena Impero tanker, with 23 crew members aboard, had been detained on the grounds that it failed to stop after colliding with a fishing vessel.
Britain, while saying it was not consider