Five
Iranian boats fired shots across the bow of a Singapore flagged cargo
vessel in the Persian Gulf on Thursday in an attempt to potentially stop
the ship, a U.S. official told CNN. For the first time, the incident
brought another Persian Gulf nation into the recent rising maritime
tensions in the region.
It is not
yet clear if any of the rounds hit the Alpine Eternity. There were no
U.S. citizens or cargo on board. The Pentagon is still gathering
information about the incident.
The
incident began when five small fast boats, believed to be manned by
Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy approached the cargo vessel just
off the coast of the United Arab Emirates but in international water,
the official said.
These Iranian boats are typically manned with smaller caliber weapons such as machine guns.
Iran, U.S. tensions growing over key shipping lane 02:17
The
Iranian boats fired across the bow, and at that point the cargo vessel
turned and escaped by entering into UAE territorial waters, according to
initial U.S. military reports of the incident. The UAE sent three of
its coast guard boats out to the cargo vessel.
The
incident began with the Iranians ordering the ship into Iranian waters.
When the ships master refused, the Iranians began to fire in a way to
try to disable the ship, not just as warning shots, the U.S. official
said.
Several shots hit the cargo
ship, but did not disable it. The ship went into UAE waters and the
Iranians followed it into those territorial waters, continuing to fire,
before breaking off.
The cargo ship's
master did call coalition warships in the vicinity on the radio
including U.S. Navy warships to ask for help when the incident began. A
P-3 from a country in the region was sent overhead and the Navy began
moving, but the incident was over before it could get there.
Ben
Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser, said Thursday there were
"no U.S. vessels or persons" involved in Thursday's incident.
He
didn't have any more details of the episode, but he said those types of
incidents are "exactly the type of challenge many of the GCC partners
are focused on."
President Barack Obama did not discuss the incident with Gulf leaders at Camp David.
The
Pentagon recently stopped escorting commercial vessels through the
Strait of Hormuz and it's not clear if those operations will resume.
They had been escorting commercial shipping but of two recent Iranian
incidents interfering with cargo shipping in the area.
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