Yikes. "Fifteen British Navy personnel have been captured at gunpoint by Iranian forces," the BBC (and lots of others) report.
The Brits, sailors and marines based on the frigate HMS Cornwall, were "engaged in routine boarding operations of merchant shipping in Iraqi territorial waters," and had completed a ship inspection when they were accosted by Iranian vessels, Britain's
Defense Ministry tells the AP.
The Cornwall's web site has a ton of information about the ship's crew, captain, and capabilities -- including this picture of the ship's sailors, to the right.
- According to a statement from the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet... the British sailors had just finished inspecting the merchant ship "when they and their two boats were surrounded and escorted by Iranian vessels into
Iranian territorial waters."
Cmdr. Kevin Aandahl of the Fifth
Fleet said the British crew members were intercepted by several larger patrol boats operated by Iranian sailors belonging to the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, a radical force that operates separately from the country's regular navy.
The Iranian boats normally carry bow-mounted machine guns, while the British boarding party carried only sidearms, Aandahl said. No shots were fired and there appeared to be no physical harm done to any personnel involved or their vessels, Aandahl said.
The seizure of the British vessels, a pair of rigid inflatable boats known as RIBs, took place in long-disputed waters just outside of the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway that divides Iraq from Iran, Aandahl said. A 1975 treaty gave the waters to Iraq and U.S. and British ships commonly operate there, but Aandahl said Iran disputes Iraq's jurisdiction over the waters.
"It's been in dispute for some time," Aandahl said. "We've been operating there for a couple of years and we know the lines very well.
This was a compliant boarding, this happens routinely. What's out of the ordinary is the Iranian response."
****
** Aandahl said the
U.S.-led task force has touchier relations with the Revolutionary
Guard, who often ignores normal maritime operating traditions, than with the regular Iranian navy.
**That leads the Counterterrorism Blog (via Instapundit) to ask, "Is this an intentional act approved by senior Iranian leadership... Or is this the action of a local commander, unauthorized by leadership, and due to anything from bad navigation equipment (hard to believe but it happens), one too many drinks, or a misinterpretation of orders?"
I wonder whether this has anything to do with the Iran "week-long war-games" Iran started Thursday on its "southern shores."
Iraqslogger notes the possibility on an "Iranian hand" in recent fighting in Basra, near the Shatt al-Arab, and also observes that "In 2004, a similar incident occurred,and though the Iranian government grumbled about prosecuting, those sailors were released within days."
