Iranians stage boat 'attack' on US ships
American warships came seconds away from firing on Iranian gunboats that harassed them in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, it emerged today.
In echoes of the incident last March when 15 British sailors from HMS Cornwall were captured, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard charged the navy ships in what Washington called a “serious act of provocation”.
US forces were about to open fire in the incident early yesterday, when the boats turned and moved away, said a Pentagon official.
“It is the most serious provocation of this sort that we’ve seen yet,” said the official.
The incident came at about 5am local time as a US Navy cruiser, destroyer and frigate were transiting the strait on their way into the Gulf.
“Five small boats were acting in a very aggressive way, charging the ships, dropping boxes in the water in front of the ships and causing our ships to take evasive manoeuvres,” the Pentagon official said.
“There were no injuries but there very well could have been,” he said, adding that the Iranian boats turned away “literally at the very moment that US forces were preparing to open fire” in self defence.
He said he did not have the precise transcript of communications that the two forces exchanged, but the Iranians radioed something to the effect that “we’re coming at you and you’ll explode in a couple minutes.”
Historical tensions between the two nations have increased in recent years over Washington’s accusations that Tehran has been developing nuclear weapons and supplying and training Iraqi insurgents using roadside bombs – the main killer of US troops in Iraq.
