Iranian Navy fires at, boards commercial container ship, official says

Posted 2015-04-28 17:16 by Grunt Report with 0 comments

Iranian Navy vessels fired shots at and boarded a Marshall Islands-flagged commercial container ship in the Strait of Hormuz Tuesday, a senior defense official told Fox News.

The Maersk Tigris ship — originally heading to Jebel Ali in the United Arab Emirates, is now being escorted by the Iranian Navy into waters near Bandar Abbas, home of Iran’s largest Navy base.

The USS Farragut, a guided missile destroyer, is making “best speed” en route to the area and has dispatched a helicopter to get a closer look, the official said.

Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said the cargo ship’s master had initially refused an Iranian order to move further into Iranian waters, but after the warning shots were fired the Maersk Tigris complied.

The cargo ship, which had more than 30 people aboard, was directed to waters near Larak Island, he said.

The Iranian vessels, numbering five or six, were with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, Warren said.

“It is inappropriate” for the Iranians to have fired warning shots across the ship’s bridge in those circumstances, Warren said, adding that it was too early to know whether the Iranian intervention amounted to a violation of the freedom of navigation through a waterway heavily used by international shipping.

The spokesman said the U.S. government has “certain obligations” to defend the interests of the Marshall Islands, but he was uncertain how those obligations apply in this situation.

Warren said no one has been injured and no Americans are involved. The cargo ship issued a distress call and U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, based in the area.

A Maersk spokesman told Fox News that although Maersk, a Danish company based in Copenhagen, owns the vessel, it had “chartered” the ship to Rickmers Ship Management based in Hamburg, Germany. Maersk said it had no information about the crew or the cargo

The incident began at about 4:05 a.m. U.S. Eastern Daylight Time, Warren said.

Fox News’ Lucas Tomlinson, Catherine Herridge and The Associated Press contributed to this report.