US Navy Ship Fires Shots at Iranian ‘Fast Boat’

The U.S. Navy destroyer USS Nitze was “harassed” by four Iranian Revolutionary Guard small craft on Tuesday, some of them coming as close as 300 yards to the ship as it was in the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz, a Department of Defense official said Wednesday.

When it failed to leave the area after the Navy had fired flares and had a radio conversation with the Iranian crew, the USA officials said, the USS Squall fired three warning shots.

“Ultimately, Squall resorted to firing three warning shots from their 50-caliber gun, which caused the Iranian vessel to turn away”.

Four Iranian ships made reckless maneuvers close to a US warship this week, the Pentagon said Thursday, in an incident that officials said could have led to unsafe escalation. He described the Iranian actions as “unsafe and unprofessional”.

According to U.S. Navy Cmdr.

In the second encounter, occurring in the Persian Gulf on Wednesday, a U.S. Navy ship was forced to fire three warning shots at the Iranian aggressors.

The surface combatants Tempest, Nitze and Stout also used communications and set off flares to wave off the Iranian fast boats.

“Eventually, the Iranian vessels slowed before proceeding outbound”.

Seen from USS Nitze, four Iranian Naval Revolutionary Guards vessels make a high-speed approach as the U.S. destroyer was transiting the Strait of Hormuz Tuesday.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said the three American ships were operating in global waters as normal and said that the crews deemed the incidents that occurred on Wednesday unsafe and unprofessional.

Iran claimed the American ship entered its territorial waters, and that “if any foreign vessel enters our waters, we warn them, and if it’s an invasion, we confront”. “These are incidents that carry a risk of escalation and we don’t desire any kind of escalation”.

The Iranians boarded the boats, pointed their guns at the US sailors and took them to the island where they were held overnight.

In January, Iran detained 10 U.S. sailors at gunpoint after they ended up in Iranian waters.

Adm. John Richardson, chief of naval operations for the U.S. Navy, called it the “new normal” with Iran. Earlier the two American ships had an earlier encounter with three other Iranian small craft that crossed in front of the bow three times, coming as close as 600 yards, USA officials said.