WORLD / Middle East
Iran seizes 15 British sailors
(AP)
Updated: 2007-03-24 08:54
Commodore Nick Lambert, commander of the British Royal Navy frigate HMS
Cornwall, speaks aboard his ship Friday March 23, 2007in this image made
from television. [AP]
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Naval forces of Iran's Revolutionary Guards
captured 15 British sailors and marines at gunpoint Friday in the Persian
Gulf - a move coming during heightened tensions between the West and Iran.
U.S. and British officials said a boarding party from the frigate HMS
Cornwall was seized about 10:30 a.m. during a routine inspection of a
merchant ship inside Iraqi territorial waters near the disputed Shatt
al-Arab waterway.
Iran's Foreign Ministry insisted the Britons were operating in Iranian
waters and would be held "for further investigation," Iranian state
television said.
A U.S. Navy official in Bahrain, Cmdr. Kevin Aandahl, said Iran's
Revolutionary Guard naval forces were responsible and had broadcast a
brief radio message saying the British party was not harmed.
In London, the British government summoned the Iranian ambassador to the
Foreign Office, and Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said he "was left
in no doubt that we want them back."
Iranian TV quoted an Iranian Foreign Ministry official as saying the top
British diplomat in Tehran had been called in to receive Tehran's protest
of the "illegal entry" into Iranian waters.
"This is not the first time that British military personnel during the
occupation of Iraq have entered illegally into Iran's territorial
waters," the unidentified official was quoted as saying.
Britain's Defense Ministry said the Royal Navy personnel were "engaged in
routine boarding operations of merchant shipping in Iraqi territorial
waters" and had completed a ship inspection when they were accosted by
Iranian vessels.
The eight Royal Navy sailors and seven Royal Marines were part of a task
force that protects Iraqi oil terminals and maintains security in Iraqi
waters under authority of the U.N. Security Council.
The Cornwall's commander, Commodore Nick Lambert, said the frigate lost
communication with the boarding party, but a helicopter crew saw Iranian
naval vessels approach.
"I've got 15 sailors and marines who have been arrested by the Iranians
and my immediate concern is their safety," he told British Broadcasting
Corp. television.
Lambert said he hoped it was a "simple mistake" stemming from the long
dispute between Iraq and Iran over demarcating their territorial waters
just off the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab, a waterway that divides the two
countries.
White House press secretary Tony Snow said the Bush administration was
monitoring events. "The British government is demanding the immediate
safe return of the people and equipment and we are keeping watch on the
situation," Snow said.
The incident occurred as the U.N. Security Council debates expanding
sanctions against Iran seeking to force Tehran to suspend uranium
enrichment. The U.S. and other nations suspect Iran is trying to produce
nuclear weapons. Iran denies that and insists it won't halt the program.
Iran's leaders also have denied allegations by the U.S., Britain and
others that Iranians are arming Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq.
Hours before the seizure of the Royal Navy team, British Lt. Col. Justin
Maciejewski told BBC Radio 4's "Today" program from the Iraqi city of
Basra that Iranians provided weapons and money to militants who are
attacking British troops in southern Iraq.
The U.S. military has leveled similar charges, saying Iranians send arms
to Iraqi extremists, including sophisticated roadside bombs.
This week, two commanders of an Iraqi Shiite militia told The Associated
Press in Baghdad that hundreds of Iraqi Shiites had crossed into Iran for
training by the elite Quds force, a branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guard
thought to have trained Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.
With tensions running high, the United States has bolstered its naval
forces in the Persian Gulf in a show of strength directed at Iran. A
strike group led by the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis recently
joined a similar force led by the carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.
U.S. officials have expressed concern that with so much military hardware
in the Gulf, a small incident like Friday's could escalate into a
dangerous confrontation.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, warned this week that if
Western countries "treat us with threats and enforcement of coercion and
violence, undoubtedly they must know that the Iranian nation and
authorities will use all their capacities to strike enemies that attack."
The seizure of two Royal Navy inflatable boats took place just outside
the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, a 125-mile channel dividing Iraq
from Iran. Its name means Arab Coastline in Arabic, and Iranians call it
Arvandrud �� Persian for Arvand River.
A 1975 treaty recognized the middle of the waterway as the border. Iraqi
leader Saddam Hussein canceled the treaty five years later and invaded
Iran, triggering an eight-year war.
"It's been in dispute for some time," said Aandahl, the U.S. Navy
official in Bahrain. "We've been operating there for a couple of years
and we know the lines very well. This was a compliant boarding, this
happens routinely. What's out of the ordinary is the Iranian response."
In June 2004, six British marines and two sailors were seized by Iran in
the Shatt al-Arab. They were presented blindfolded on Iranian television
and admitted entering Iranian waters illegally, then released unharmed
after three days.
Vali Nasr, a senior fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on
Foreign Relations, suggested Friday's detention could be connected to the
arrest of five Iranians in a U.S.-led raid in northern Iraq in January.
The U.S. said the five included a Revolutionary Guard general.
"I think Iran sees this as retaliation for the arrest of their own
personnel. They have repeatedly said that they want their personnel
released," Nasr said. "So they are either signaling that they can do the
same thing or they are trying to bring attention to it."
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