American and Iranian warships had a confrontation in the Arabian Gulf earlier this month, the US Navy revealed on Tuesday.
According to the US Navy, a ship commanded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard cut in front of the USCGC Monomoy, causing the Coast Guard vessel to come to an abrupt stop with its engine smoking on April 2.
The Guard also did the same with another Coast Guard vessel, the USCGC Wrangell, said Rebecca Rebarich, a spokeswoman for the Navy’s 5th Fleet. Such close passes risk the ships colliding at sea.
Rebarich explained that the crews of the two American ships issued multiple warnings via the command radio, followed by the launch of the ship’s horn 5 times. Although the Iranian ship “Harath 55” responded to the command radio’s inquiries, it continued the unsafe maneuvers.
“After approximately three hours of the US issuing warning and conducting defensive manoeuvers, the (Iranian) vessels maneuvered away from the US ships and opened distance between them,” Rebariach said.
The interaction marked the first “unsafe and unprofessional” incident involving the Iranians since April 15, 2020. However, Iran had largely stopped such incidents in 2018 and 2019, The American official added.
