{"id":10138,"date":"2020-05-20T01:28:18","date_gmt":"2020-05-19T22:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/in-veiled-warning-to-iran-u-s-tells-gulf-mariners-to-stay-clear-of-its-warships\/10138\/"},"modified":"2020-05-20T01:28:18","modified_gmt":"2020-05-19T22:28:18","slug":"in-veiled-warning-to-iran-u-s-tells-gulf-mariners-to-stay-clear-of-its-warships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/in-veiled-warning-to-iran-u-s-tells-gulf-mariners-to-stay-clear-of-its-warships\/10138\/","title":{"rendered":"In Veiled Warning to Iran, U.S. Tells Gulf Mariners to Stay Clear of Its Warships"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p>By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali WASHINGTON, May 19 (Reuters) \u2013 In an alert that appeared aimed squarely at Iran, the U.S. Navy issued a warning on Tuesday to mariners in the Gulf to stay 100 meters (yards) away from U.S. warships or risk being \u201cinterpreted as a threat and subject to lawful defensive measures.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>The notice to mariners, which was first reported by Reuters, follows U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/gcaptain.com\/president-trump-tells-navy-to-shoot-down-iranian-gunboats-if-they-harass-u-s-ships\/\">threat<\/a> last month to fire on any Iranian ships that harass Navy vessels.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\u201cArmed vessels approaching within 100 meters of a U.S. naval vessel may be interpreted as a threat,\u201d according to the text of the notice, which can be seen <a href=\"https:\/\/msi.nga.mil\/api\/publications\/download?type=view&amp;key=16694640\/SFH00000\/DailyMemPAC.txt\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the new notice to mariners was not a change in the U.S. military\u2019s rules of engagement.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>The Pentagon has stated that Trump\u2019s threat was meant to underscore the Navy\u2019s right to self-defense.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>The Bahrain-based U.S. Naval Forces Central Command said in a statement that its notice was \u201cdesigned to enhance safety, minimize ambiguity and reduce the risk of miscalculation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>It follows an incident last month in which 11 Iranian vessels <a href=\"https:\/\/gcaptain.com\/u-s-navy-says-iran-revolutionary-guard-vessels-harassed-u-s-military-vessels-in-arabian-gulf\/\">came close<\/a> to U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships in the Gulf, in what the U.S. military called \u201cdangerous and provocative\u201d behavior.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>At one point, the Iranian vessels came within 10 yards (9 meters) of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Maui, the U.S. military said.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Trump\u2019s threat followed that incident, which Tehran, in turn, said was the fault of the United States.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>The head of Iran\u2019s elite Revolutionary Guards responded to Trump by threatening to destroy U.S. warships if its security is threatened in the Gulf.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>The back-and-forth is just latest example of razor-sharp tension between Washington and Tehran, which has steadily escalated since 2018, when Trump withdrew from Iran\u2019s 2015 nuclear deal with six world powers and reimposed crippling sanctions.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Animosity reached historic heights in early January, when the United States killed top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Iran retaliated on Jan. 9 by firing missiles at bases in Iraq, causing brain injuries among U.S. troops at one of them.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Close interactions with Iranian military vessels were not uncommon in 2016 and 2017. On several occasions, U.S. Navy ships fired warning shots at Iranian vessels when they got too close.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>But Iran had halted such maneuvers before the April incident. (Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; Editing by Sandra Maler and Tom Brown)<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><em>(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2019.<\/em> <\/p>\n<p>gCaptain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali WASHINGTON, May 19 (Reuters) \u2013 In an alert that appeared aimed squarely at Iran, the U.S. Navy issued a warning on Tuesday to mariners in the Gulf to stay 100 meters (yards) away from U.S. warships or risk being \u201cinterpreted as a threat and subject to lawful defensive measures.\u201d &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[2202,1497,91,1334,1942,3476,6533,3177,5127],"class_list":["post-10138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marine-world","tag-clear","tag-gulf","tag-iran","tag-mariners","tag-stay","tag-tells","tag-veiled","tag-warning","tag-warships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/10139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}