Sailors Captured, Released by Iran Are San Diego Based

Iranian state television is reporting that all 10 USA sailors detained by Iran after entering its territorial waters have been released.

During Harmer’s eight deployments there between 1995 and 2009, he said USA pilots and ship crews took care to stay in communication with their Iranian counterparts and not take unnecessary risk.

In one part, Americans are seen being served food in a room, while someone flips through a number of USA passports, presumably belonging to the sailors.

The 10 American sailors captured by Iran have been freed, US and Iranian officials said.

And that might be why the USA sailors were held for only one day, a CNN military analyst said. Iran claimed that the two boats were boarded three nautical miles inside Iranian territorial waters off Farsi island in the middle of the Persian Gulf.

The Obama administration portrayed the outcome as a diplomatic victory; critics of the Iran nuclear deal considered the whole affair indicative of the risks in letting a longtime pariah back into the global fold.

Iran accused the sailors of trespassing but American officials said Tehran has assured them that the crew and vessels would be returned safely and promptly.

The incident came to a quick and satisfactory end, which as Secretary of State John Kerry pointed out, is saying something when it comes to Iran. He told Zarif that the sailors were in transit between Kuwait and Bahrain and had experienced some sort of mechanical failure.

A senior defense official said no distress call was made by the ships. The sailors were in Iranian custody on Farsi Island at least for some time, but it’s not certain where they are now.

The sailors left the island at 1943 AEDT on Wednesday aboard their boats, the United States navy said. The sailors were released Wednesday morning. One of the detainees, a woman, was forced to wear a scarf to cover her hair, in accordance with Muslim custom.

Iranian state television released footage of the arrest, showing the sailors as they knelt down with hands behind their heads and their two vessels being surrounded by several IRGC fast boats.

“They obviously had misnavigated… that’s how they believe they ended up in this circumstance”, Carter said in an interview in Miami with Fusion network.

Meanwhile, Iran was expected to satisfy the terms of last summer’s nuclear deal in just days.

But the lifting of sanctions is due to begin with the pending implementation, and this incident could throw a wrench in the works.

The sailors were already released after the inconvenience took place. Other incidents include ballistic missile tests that the United Nations charged violated a Security Council resolution. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., a member of the Senate Amred Services Committee, told CNN.

USA and Iranian officials scrambled to defuse the situation, which unfolded as the nuclear accord edged toward its final steps, with a top Iranian official saying the deal should be implemented by Sunday.

But Earnest pushed back on the criticism of the deal.

US officials also blamed mechanical trouble for the incident.