Iran says it seized British tanker, denies U.S. brought down drone

By Parisa Hafezi and Steve Holland

 

Undated handout photograph shows the Stena Impero, a British-flagged vessel owned by Stena Bulk, at an undisclosed location, obtained by Reuters on July 19, 2019. Stena Bulk/Handout/via REUTERS

 

DUBAI/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iran said it had seized a British oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz on Friday but denied Washington's assertion that the U.S. Navy had downed an Iranian drone nearby this week, as tensions in the Gulf region grew again.

 

Britain said it was urgently seeking information about the Stena Impero tanker, which had been heading to a port in Saudi Arabia and suddenly changed course after passing through the strait at the mouth of the Gulf.

 

Iran's state news agency IRNA quoted a military source as saying the vessel had turned off its tracker, ignored warnings from the Revolutionary Guards and was sailing in the wrong direction in a shipping lane.

 

"We will respond in a way that is considered but robust and we are absolutely clear that if this situation is not resolved quickly there will be serious consequences," British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told reporters.

 

Hunt said Britain was "not looking at military options, we are looking at a diplomatic way to resolve the situation."

 

The Revolutionary Guards have not captured a second tanker - the British-operated, Liberian-flagged ship Mesdar - in the Gulf, Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency reported, quoting regional military sources.

 

The Mesdar had turned sharply north toward Iran's coast on Friday afternoon but then changed course again and headed westward away from Iran, according to Refinitiv tracking data.

 

Relations between Washington and Tehran worsened last year when U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned a 2015 nuclear deal between world powers and Iran. Under the pact, Iran agreed to restrict nuclear work, long seen by the West as a cover for developing atomic bombs, in return for lifting sanctions. But sanctions have been imposed again, badly hurting Iran's economy.

 

Trump said he would talk to Britain about the report of the British tanker being seized in the Gulf.

 

Relations between Iran and the West have been increasingly strained in recent months over security in the Gulf, U.S. sanctions on Iran and Tehran's nuclear programme.

 

Military incidents in the Gulf have increased international concern that both sides could blunder into a war in the strategic waterway, which is vital to world oil supplies.

 

Oil prices gained on Friday, trading above $62 a barrel, after the latest spike in tensions along the waterway.

 

Iran shot down a U.S. drone in the Gulf in June and British naval forces seized an Iranian tanker in Gibraltar on July 4 on suspicion of smuggling oil to Syria.

 

The U.S. military said on Friday that unarmed surveillance aircraft were in international airspace, monitoring the Strait of Hormuz and had been in contact with U.S. ships in the area.

 

"We have patrol aircraft operating in international airspace monitoring the situation within the Strait of Hormuz," said Lieutenant Colonel Earl Brown, a U.S. Central Command spokesman.

 

Iran and the United States were at odds over a U.S. assertion that its Navy had shot down an Iranian drone on Thursday in the Strait of Hormuz because it had come too close to a U.S. warship.

 

GRAPHIC: Map of tanker's route -

 

'NO DOUBT'

 

Trump said there was no doubt the U.S. Navy warship Boxer had destroyed an Iranian drone but Tehran showed video footage that it said disproved the incident even happened.

 

“No doubt about it, no. We shot it down,” Trump said.

 

Speaking about Iran, he said the United States hopes "for their sake they don’t do anything foolish. If they do they will pay a price like nobody has ever paid a price.”

 

Trump said on Thursday that the Boxer, an amphibious assault ship, had destroyed an Iranian drone because it had flown to within 1,000 yards (914 meters) of the ship in a "provocative and hostile action." A U.S. official said the drone was brought down by electronic jamming.

 

But Iran said all of its drones were accounted for.

 

"All drones belonging to Iran in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz ... returned safely to their bases after their mission of identification and control," Abolfazl Shekarchi, a senior Iranian armed forces spokesman, was quoted by the semi-official Tasnim news agency as saying.

 

He said there was no report of any "operational response" by the Boxer and Iran's state television broadcast a video showing aerial views of ships that it said disproved the U.S. assertion.

 

The television station said the footage, which came from Iran's Revolutionary Guards, and the timing notations indicated the pilotless aircraft was still filming after Washington said it had been downed.

 

FALTERING DIPLOMACY

 

The United States has blamed Iran for a series of attacks since mid-May on shipping around the Strait of Hormuz.

Tehran rejects the allegations.

 

The United States has reimposed economic sanctions to throttle Iran's oil trade and pressure Tehran to renegotiate the nuclear accord, discuss its ballistic missiles and modify its regional policies.

 

Tehran on Thursday signalled a willingness to engage in diplomacy with a modest offer on its nuclear work - ratification of a document prescribing more intrusive nuclear inspections if Washington abandoned its sanctions.

 

But a senior Trump administration official dismissed the offer by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

 

Zarif appeared to have no decision-making ability and that Washington "would not consider anything from him serious," the official said.

 

Asked whom the United States would need to hear from in order to have negotiations over Tehran's nuclear programme, the official said: "I would say the supreme leader or the president."

 

Trump remained open to negotiations with Iran without preconditions on its nuclear programme and will maintain a tough economic sanctions regime on Tehran in the meantime, the official said.

 

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States needed Iran to "come to the table" for negotiations.

 

(Reporting by Steve Holland in Washington and Parisa Hafezi in Dubai; additional reporting by Idrees Ali in Washington, Reuters staff in Dubai and Kate Holton and Jonathan Saul in London; writing by Alistair Bell; editing by Bill Trott and Grant McCool)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-07-20

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Arm the ships with mercenaries. Some of the coolest vids on Youtube are of gung-ho mercenaries on huge ships letting rip on pirates off the Somali/Eritrean coast. What I can tell you is, when the hail of large caliber bullets start raining down on nutty bad dudes in small boats, their bravado evaporates rather quickly!

21 minutes ago, TopDeadSenter said:

Arm the ships with mercenaries. Some of the coolest vids on Youtube are of gung-ho mercenaries on huge ships letting rip on pirates off the Somali/Eritrean coast. What I can tell you is, when the hail of large caliber bullets start raining down on nutty bad dudes in small boats, their bravado evaporates rather quickly!

A friend of my son considered doing that.  He had come back from Afghanistan after a deployment with the Marine Corps.  In Afghanistan he started driving a patrol Humvee, but was deemed to be a bit too aggressive.  So they put him on top and let him man the 40mm automatic grenade launcher, LOL. 

Iran has reverted to the old tryed and true method of taking hostages 

 well we all seen that coming, (all except the idiots running the UK security) Duh !!

Which side is lying the most? Sadly in these days of untruth, we have no idea.

25 minutes ago, canuckamuck said:

Which side is lying the most? Sadly in these days of untruth, we have no idea.

i think that way too.  trump has to maintain his tough guy image so he could be making this up. 

Hunt should send a strongly worded letter or a poem from Boris to teach the turban one a hell of a lesson????

4 hours ago, rooster59 said:

Trump said on Thursday that the Boxer, an amphibious assault ship, had destroyed an Iranian drone because it had flown to within 1,000 yards (914 meters) of the ship in a "provocative and hostile action."

Here's why U.S. allies are very cautious with taking U.S. side for any retaliatory military actions against Iran. There's no trust that Trump speaks the truth.

• Drone said to be behave in a "provocative and hostile action;" yet in 2016 when an unarmed Iranian drone flew directly OVER the airfraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower CVN 69 the U.S. military labeled the move "abnormal and unprofessional" but said "it posed no risk to the vessel."  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i1QCyclb5Q Iran (if it did fly a drone NEAR the USS Boxer) would correctly assume the same protocol was in place.
• There's no photo or other hard documentation of the alleged drone overflying or otherwise interfering with ship operations - unlike with other foreign aerial surveillance flights over or nearby U.S. warships by Russia and China - which suggests the alleged Iranian drone was no threat to USS Boxer operations
• There's no evidence that the drone was armed for combat - Iran makes eight different drone designs but no mention by the U.S. of type
• The drone was allegedly downed because it "came too close," within 1,000 meters; yet, in 2016 Russian swing-wing Su-24 Fencers made multiple simulated attack runs on the USS Donald Cook whose maneuvers were said to have been “extremely aggressive” and so low that wakes were kicked up in the water below the jets. https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/russian-attack-jets-aggressively-fly-over-u-s-destroye-1770792698   The U.S. took no retaliatory action. In 2019 a twin-tail Russian-built strike aircraft flew within 300 meters (1,000 feet) of the Canadian frigate HMCS Regina ship's bow while the ship was in international waters off Shanghai; frigate's captain said the Chinese jets didn't pose a danger to his ship other than to say that the flight was more aggressive than anything the (Canadian Navy) has seen before from Chinese fighter jets.
    Again there seems to be an implied clearance protocol understand by the world navies before retaliation is taken.     
• The drone was as a minimum flying in international airspace, but as Iran does have sovereignty over parts of the Hormuz Strait the drone may have been operating with Iranian airspace - there's no mention of such matters! In either case Iran has the right to operate surveillance drones throughout the Hormuz airspace.

No, what the alleged drone affair with the USS Boxer comes down to is the U.S. can act by POTUS Trump's direction with impunity as a military bully against nations of lesser military force. If this drone was Russian or Chinese I'd expect it could possibly even land on the U.S. vessel deck unhindered. There was no operational reason for the USS Boxer to down the Iranian drone but obviously there was a very political reason - war serves politics.

 

 

4 hours ago, TopDeadSenter said:

Arm the ships with mercenaries. Some of the coolest vids on Youtube are of gung-ho mercenaries on huge ships letting rip on pirates off the Somali/Eritrean coast. What I can tell you is, when the hail of large caliber bullets start raining down on nutty bad dudes in small boats, their bravado evaporates rather quickly!

Just about every tanker in the world has written in big red letters across their superstructure the words NO SMOKING. And it's not because the owners are anti-tobacco. 

If standing on top of a fireball waiting to ignite isn't enough reason not to fire small arms, consider that the patrol boats are also armed with a variety of weaponry ranging from heavy machine guns to missiles and torpedoes. 

1 hour ago, canuckamuck said:

Which side is lying the most? Sadly in these days of untruth, we have no idea.

Usually it is a western government.

Iran's state news agency IRNA quoted a military source as saying the vessel had turned off its tracker, ignored warnings from the Revolutionary Guards and was sailing in the wrong direction in a shipping lane.

 

Is it possible that a Thai woman was steering the ship? 

4 minutes ago, Isaanbiker said:

Not a good idea. They could take over the ship in a nano second by using their flying carpet attack force. 

Yeah, that's how they fought Isis.

With my company we always have a security det standing by on the 50 cals plus an escort passing thru the Strait. Fock I hate that place.

Iran may well have shot themselves in the foot as although the ship was UK registered, it was owned by a Swedish company and crewed by Indian, Russian, Latvian and Filipinos.

 

The EU sanctions on Iran were not as strong as the the Americans but can see EU imposing sanctions in line with America within days.

 

What next? blockade of Iran? banning Iranian ships from European waters? banning Iranian owned or operated flights from EU airspace?  banning flight to and from Iran from EU airports?

6 hours ago, TopDeadSenter said:

Arm the ships with mercenaries. Some of the coolest vids on Youtube are of gung-ho mercenaries on huge ships letting rip on pirates off the Somali/Eritrean coast. What I can tell you is, when the hail of large caliber bullets start raining down on nutty bad dudes in small boats, their bravado evaporates rather quickly!

 

Somali pirates might be a little different to Iranian revolutionary guards, but sure, that utuby webby thing sure has some good old fashioned gung ho mercenary stuff on it.... and the mercs always seem to win, so it’s a no brainer really.

5 hours ago, Tug said:

Oral has reverted to the old tryed and true method of taking hostages 

that's how Persia/Iran works, actions they speak loud than words and they are known for not being too much of talkers, unfortunately dialog with them will not achieve anything other than wasting time

1 minute ago, Mavideol said:

that's how Persia/Iran works, actions they speak loud than words and they are known for not being too much of talkers, unfortunately dialog with them will not achieve anything other than wasting time

Dialog once managed to get Russia and China to sign on to a nuclear pact. Not Iran's fault that the pact is falling to pieces. And most nations recognize this.

Iran agreed to much tighter oversight on their nuclear programs for US lifting sanctions.

 

Sanctions are essentially "bombs" that kill women and children, slowly. So they are somehow much more acceptable. 

 

US denied the offer. They clearly want a war. Iran has AGREED to be completely monitored and shut off from any nuclear development. 

 

If you read the news, actually read what is going on, it is easy to see who is war mongering and profiteering here, and who just wants to be left alone and go about their business. 

1 minute ago, meand said:

Iran agreed to much tighter oversight on their nuclear programs for US lifting sanctions.

 

Sanctions are essentially "bombs" that kill women and children, slowly. So they are somehow much more acceptable. 

 

US denied the offer. They clearly want a war. Iran has AGREED to be completely monitored and shut off from any nuclear development. 

 

If you read the news, actually read what is going on, it is easy to see who is war mongering and profiteering here, and who just wants to be left alone and go about their business. 

Actually, as I understand it, that protocol for tighter inspections was going to happen anyway. Which kind of further undercuts the lies told by Trump that they were secretly cheating. Just like George Bush and friends asserted that Iran was building weapons of mass destruction even though the agency in charge of inspection said they had found no evidence of such.

4 hours ago, canuckamuck said:

Which side is lying the most? Sadly in these days of untruth, we have no idea.

Sorry, wrong. In the past I'd say it could be a difficult question, in these days we know it is the USA lying the most.

Like throwing rocks at a hornets nest... just not a good idea.

9 hours ago, rooster59 said:

Trump said there was no doubt

 

9 hours ago, rooster59 said:

“No doubt about it, no. We shot it down,” Trump said.

Always assume that the real truth is completely opposite to what that idiotic liar says.
Provide PROOF...

1 hour ago, stevenl said:

Sorry, wrong. In the past I'd say it could be a difficult question, in these days we know it is the USA lying the most.

Yeah, at least 2 to 1 that the globalists are manipulating the whole event. 

Iran has every right tom stop the  tanker , IF INDEED THE TANKER BROKE THE RULES .

Why did the tanker switch its tracker off ?

Could be that the Iranians are being provoked into a war 

5 hours ago, Pedrogaz said:

Usually it is a western government.

Iraq Ron says Trump is lying.  Canuck Muck says it's the globalists and Pedro says any/all Western governments are lying.  Hmmm 

27 minutes ago, marcusarelus said:

Iraq Ron says Trump is lying.  Canuck Muck says it's the globalists and Pedro says any/all Western governments are lying.  Hmmm 

They all lie but the US get's the MSM to make sure it's lies are shouted the loudest.

The UK has only itself to blame as, once again, it acted as the US lapdog in impounding the Iranian tanker.

8 minutes ago, khunken said:

They all lie but the US get's the MSM to make sure it's lies are shouted the loudest.

The UK has only itself to blame as, once again, it acted as the US lapdog in impounding the Iranian tanker.

It really is true. It is such a sad state of affairs. I am not too clear how things worked going back 50 or more years, but nowadays it seems whoever lies and can control, manipulate and intimidate other countries into "believing" them the best, wins. 

9 hours ago, mercman24 said:

 well we all seen that coming, (all except the idiots running the UK security) Duh !!

 

That's what happens when you allow your Navy to be run down to a few ships and elect complete tossers to your parliament over and over again.

 

Even the thickest prick in the government must've seen that coming as Iranian leaders warned them several times and had one attempt thwarted. <deleted>, not rocket science.

6 hours ago, Pedrogaz said:

Usually it is a western government.

 

So you don't think Middle Eastern or Asian governments lie then? Right to..