Pentagon: Iran Holding 2 US Navy Boats
- Carla Babb
- Jan 12, 2016
- 2 min read
US Navy riverine boats are seen in this 2012 Defense Department photo.
PENTAGON—The crew of two small U.S. Navy vessels are being held by Iran, but Pentagon officials say Tehran has assured them that the crew and gunboats will be "promptly" returned.
A senior U.S. defense official told VOA Tuesday there are 10 total U.S. sailors - nine men and one woman - on the two boats, which were traveling in the Persian Gulf between Kuwait and Bahrain when U.S. controllers lost contact with them.
"There may have been mechanical failure on one of the vessels, but it is unclear at this time," a defense official told VOA. "My assumption is that they were in Iranian territorial waters when they were detained."
A senior administration official says Secretary of State John Kerry spoke by telephone at midday Tuesday with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammed Javad Zarif, shortly after the incident unfolded.
The Pentagon says Iran has provided safety assurances and have promised to "promptly allow them to continue on their journey."
But VOA's Persian Service says that the Iranian news service, the Fars news agency, is reporting that crewmembers have been "arrested."
U.S. officials said the incident happened in the Persian Gulf near Farsi Island, located about halfway between the gulf coast of Saudi Arabia and the Iranian mainland.
Farsi Island, in the Persian Gulf
Farsi Island is home to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps naval base, which may be why the sailors were quickly detained, Matthew Kroenig, a senior fellow in The Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, told VOA Tuesday.
“Most countries would do the same thing if foreign sailors came that close to a naval base,” Kroenig explained.
The news comes less than a month after U.S. officials accused Iran of launching a "highly provocative" rocket test near U.S. boats passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
It also came just hours before President Barack Obama was to deliver his final State of the Union address to Congress and the public. Part of the address is expected to address congressional concerns over a nuclear agreement reached last year between Tehran and Western powers.
The deal is set to curb Iran's nuclear program in return for Western governments lifting long-standing economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
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