The Pentagon said Monday (May 10) that a U.S. Coast Guard patrol boat fired warning shots as armed Iranian Revolutionary Guard speedboats approached a U.S. Navy vessel in the Strait of Hormuz. The Pentagon stressed that the high-speed encounter was “no small matter.
According to the Voice of America, Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said Monday that 13 Iranian ships today rushed at “unsafe and unprofessional” high speeds toward six U.S. Navy ships that were escorting the surface-moving guided missile submarine USS Georgia through the strait. Georgia) across the strait. The incident involved 13 Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) speedboats.
According to Kirby, six U.S. ships, including the USS Monterey (USS Monterey) missile cruiser, were escorting the USS Georgia (USS Georgia) missile submarine into the strait. During this time, the Iranian speedboat was “moving at a very fast pace …… The USS Georgia (USS Georgia), a missile submarine, was escorted into the strait. Kirby added, “This is a choke point in the region. So this is not a small matter.
A statement from the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet said Monday that 13 Islamic Republic of Iran Guard Navy speedboats split into two groups, two of which approached the U.S. ship at more than 32 knots, “with their weapons removed from their shrouds and personnel deployed.
The U.S. Coast Guard patrol ship USS Maui (USCGC Maui) opened warning fire with a .50 machine gun when the Iranian speedboats were less than 300 meters from the U.S. ship, and when the Iranian speedboats came within 140 meters, the USS Maui ” fired again as a warning, at which point the Iranian speedboat retreated.
The Associated Press report said this was the second time in two weeks that a U.S. vessel fired warning shots at a vessel of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Corps. The encounter coincided with indirect talks between the U.S. and Iran in Vienna aimed at restarting the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which the Trump administration withdrew from in 2018.
It is reported that a U.S. warship fired a warning shot on April 26 in the Persian Gulf, where an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps vessel also came too close to a U.S. patrol ship. This is the first incident of firing shots in nearly four years. The U.S. Navy released black-and-white footage of the encounter in international waters in the northern Persian Gulf (that water is near Kuwait, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia).
On the 9th, the USS Monterey, the U.S. Fifth Fleet cruiser mentioned in the above report, announced the seizure of a stateless dhow in the Arabian Sea on the 6th, carrying a large quantity of Chinese and Russian-made weapons below deck. Initial estimates indicate that the ship contained approximately 3,000 Chinese-made Type 56 automatic rifles, hundreds of heavy machine guns, sniper rifles, nearly 100 anti-tank missiles, and a large number of rocket-propelled grenade launchers and spotting scopes.
Recent Comments