US Fires At Iranian Vessel
© The Associated Press The USS Mahan, shown 2004 in the Hudson River in New York, fired the warning flare.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A
U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer fired a warning flare toward an
Iranian Revolutionary Guard vessel coming near it in the Persian Gulf,
an American official said on Wednesday, the latest tense naval
encounter between the two countries.The incident happened on Monday as
the vessel attempted to draw closer to the USS Mahan despite the
destroyer trying to turn away from it, said Lt. Ian McConnaughey, a
spokesman for the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet.The “Mahan made several
attempts to contact the Iranian vessel by bridge-to-bridge radio,
issuing warning messages and twice sounding the internationally
recognized danger signal of five short blasts with the ship’s whistle,
as well as deploying a flare to determine the Iranian vessel’s
intentions,” McConnaughey said in a statement to the Associated Press.The Iranian vessel came within 1,100 yards of the Mahan during the incident, the lieutenant said. The vessel later turned and sailed away.
Iranian authorities did not immediately report the incident on Wednesday.
The U.S. and Iran routinely have tense encounters in the Persian Gulf
and the nearby Strait of Hormuz, through which a third of all oil
traded by sea passes. Iran views the American presence as a provocation
and its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard shadows U.S. Navy ships in the
Gulf, occasionally firing missiles or rockets nearby.
Since the nuclear deal with world powers, the hard-line Revolutionary
Guard has stepped up its encounters with the Americans. The Navy
recorded 35 instances of what it describes as “unsafe and/or
unprofessional” interactions with Iranians force in 2016, compared with
23 in 2015. With Monday’s event, there have been seven so far in 2017,
McConnaughey said.
Of the incidents last year, the worst involved Iranian forces capturing 10 U.S. sailors and holding them overnight.