'Unprofessional behaviour’: Iran warns US Navy after ship fires shots at IRGCN vessels

Iran's Revolutionary Guards Navy (IRGCN) said Tuesday that it has warned the United States Navy over its 'unprofessional behaviour’ after the US Coast Guard ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz came in close proximity with the Iranian vessels and fired approximately 30 warning shots. US Navy guided-missile cruiser USS Monterey (CG 61), and seven patrol coastal ships, including USS Thunderbolt (PC 12), USS Hurricane (PC 3) and the Coast Guard patrol boats USCGC Wrangell (WPB 1332) encountered Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) fast in-shore attack craft (FIAC). Iran's Revolutionary Guards Navy (IRG) in a release said that it warned the US naval forces to “maintain the legal maritime distance” and not put up “risky and unprofessional behaviour, after which they continued on their way”. 

Defending the need of firing the warning, and explaining the tense encounter that occurred in the strategic maritime chokepoint between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, US Navy in a press release said that it was “exercising transit passage in the artery in accordance with customary international laws.” It said that a group of Iranian IRG vessels conducted "unsafe and unprofessional manoeuvres" near the US naval vessels that were escorting a guided-missile submarine, the USS Georgia, as it was transiting on the surface. 

IRGCN vessels maneuvered in an unsafe and unprofessional manner and failed to exercise due regard for the safety of US forces. Their actions were not in accordance with the internationally recognized COLREGS' ‘rules of the road’ or internationally recognized maritime customs—US Navy. 

[Credit: US Navy]

IRGCN 'swarmed' US Navy within 150 yards

“A group of 13 IRGCN ‘fast attack boats,’ swarmed around the US Naval vessels ‘at high speed’ as they came as close as within 150 yards,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told a presser. US Naval command’s fifth fleet said in a statement that the US Coast Guard Cutter Maui fired approximately 30 shots, bridge-to-bridge verbal warnings, five acoustic device warnings, and five short blasts of the ship’s horn, the internationally recognized danger signal outlined in the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGs) for IRGCN’s FIAC to break the contact. There was a looming threat to the safety of US vessels and military personnel, it stressed. After IRGCN vessels closed within 300 yards [range that put the military ships and their crews in immediate danger], Maui exercised the deescalation measures. 

“Two of the 13 IRGCN vessels transited to the opposite side of the US formation and approached Maui and Squall from behind at a high rate of speed (in excess of 32 knots),” US Naval Command Fifth Fleet said in an official press release.

“They had their weapons uncovered and manned,” it continued. The remaining 11 FIAC had begun to maintain positions which placed the formation of the US vessel in between the two IRGCN groups.”