U.S. Navy fires warning shots near Iran ship in Persian Gulf
A U.S. Navy patrol boat fired warning shots July 25 near an Iranian vessel that American sailors said came dangerously close to them during a tense encounter in the Persian Gulf. Iran’s hard-line Revolutionary Guard later blamed the American ship for provoking the incident.
The encounter involving the USS Thunderbolt, a Cyclone-class patrol ship based in Bahrain as part of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, is the latest confrontation between Iranian vessels and American warships.
The Thunderbolt was taking part in an exercise with American and other coalition vessels in international waters when the Iranian patrol boat approached it, 5th Fleet spokesman Lt. Ian McConnaughey said. The Iranian ship did not respond to radio calls, flares and horn blasts as it came within 150 yards (137 meters) of the Thunderbolt, forcing the U.S. sailors aboard to fire the warning shots, McConnaughey said.
“After the warning shots were fired, the Iranian vessel halted its unsafe approach,” the lieutenant said in a statement, adding that the Iranian vessel created “a risk for collision.” Large ships can’t stop immediately on the water, meaning getting close to each other risks a collision.
Video released by the Navy included a sailor giving a position off the eastern coast of Kuwait as the Iranian vessel sat directly in front of an American warship’s bow. Another video included images of the Iranian ship off the Thunderbolt as its horn blared. The sound of machine gun fire followed.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard instead blamed the Thunderbolt for the incident in a statement, saying the American vessel moved toward one of its patrol boats. It said the Thunderbolt fired into the air “with the intention to provoke and create fear.”
Iran and the U.S. frequently have tense naval encounters in the Persian Gulf, nearly all involving the Revolutionary Guard, a separate force from Iran’s military that answers only to the country’s supreme leader. The U.S. Navy recorded 35 instances of what it describes as “unsafe and/or unprofessional” interactions with Iranians forces in 2016, compared to 23 in 2015.
Of the incidents last year, the worst involved Iranian forces capturing 10 U.S. sailors and holding them overnight. It became a propaganda coup for Iran’s hard-liners, as Iranian state television repeatedly aired footage of the Americans on their knees, their hands on their heads.
Iranian forces view the American presence in the Gulf as a provocation by itself. They in turn have accused the U.S. Navy of unprofessional behavior, especially in the Strait of Hormuz, the mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a third of all oil trade by sea passes. AP
Russia, China hold naval exercise in Baltic
Ships of the Russian and Chinese navies have begun exercises in the Baltic Sea, watched from afar by neighboring NATO countries uneasy about Russia’s growing military assertiveness.
Russia and China have conducted joint exercises for several years, but the maneuvers that began Tuesday were the first in the Baltic, whose shores include Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland, countries that expressed concern about Russia in the wake of the 2014 annexation of Crimea.
The exercises include a Chinese destroyer, frigate and supply ship and will include live-fire practice at surface and air targets, the state news agency Tass reported.
“Lithuania constantly observes the exercises taking place in our neighborhood,” that country’s vice-defense minister Vytautas Umbrasas told the Baltic News Service. AP
Pentagon cites unsafe Chinese intercept of US plane
The pilot of a U.S. Navy EP-3 surveillance plane took evasive action to avoid possible collision with a Chinese fighter jet during an encounter off the Korean peninsula, a Pentagon spokesman said July 24.
The spokesman, Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, said two Chinese J-10 fighters intercepted the U.S. plane Sunday in international airspace between the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea, in an area he described as west of the Korean peninsula.
Davis said one of the Chinese planes approached at a high rate of speed from beneath the American plane, then slowed and pulled up, prompting the EP-3 pilot to take evasive action. He called the Chinese pilot’s action unsafe.
“This is uncharacteristic of the normal safe behavior we see from the Chinese military,” Davis said. “There are intercepts that occur in international airspace regularly, and the vast majority of them are conducted in a safe manner. This was the exception, not the norm.”
Navy Lt. Cmdr. Matt Knight, a spokesman for U.S. Pacific Fleet in Hawaii, said the American plane was on a routine mission.
“While we are still investigating the incident, initial reports from the U.S. aircrew characterized the intercept as unsafe,” Knight said in an email response to questions. “The issue is being addressed with China through appropriate diplomatic and military channels.” AP