Four Iranian ships made reckless maneuvers close to a U.S. warship this week, the Pentagon said Thursday, in an incident that officials said could have led to dangerous escalation.
William Urban, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, said the four vessels from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps conduced a “high-speed intercept” and made a close pass of the USS Nitze, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, in international waters around the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday.
The Iranian ships ignored repeated radio, whistle and flare warnings from the Nitze and only slowed their approach when they were within 300 yards of the U.S. ship, Urban said. He described the Iranian actions as “unsafe and unprofessional.”
“The Iranian high rate of closure on a United States ship operating in accordance with international law while transiting in international waters along with the disregard of multiple warning attempts created a dangerous, harassing situation that could have led to further escalation including additional defensive measures by Nitze,” he said in a statement.
The incident is the latest sign of U.S.-Iranian friction near Iran’s coast. In January, a group of U.S. sailors was detained overnight by Iranian personnel after their boats veered into Iranian waters. It was an embarrassment for the Obama administration, and resulted in disciplinary action for some of U.S. personnel involved in that incident.
Long-standing U.S. tensions with Iran over Tehran’s support for militant groups across the Middle East have not dissipated in the wake of the 2015 deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program. The two countries are backing different sides in the conflict in Syria and remain at arm’s length in Iraq despite shared support for the government in Baghdad.
The Nitze was accompanied by the USS Mason, a guided missile destroyer, as it made what Urban described as a “routine transit” through an area that is an important to international maritime thoroughfare.
Picture: Reuters
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(c) 2016, The Washington Post ยท Missy Ryan
