Westward Venture, on charter to the Military Sea CommandFile photo. sunshiporg.homestead.com
The Westward Venture, a ship contracted by the Navy to carry military cargo to Kuwait, fired warning shots Thursday on two Iranian fast boats, Fox News reported today.
The incident reportedly happened in the Persian Gulf about 50 miles of the Iranian coast. The Westward Venture blew its whistle and fired flares before using the machine guns to fire the warning shots.
There were no reports of damage or casualties.
UPDATE: Crude oil spiked more than $3 in the wake of the news.
9 comments:
The Westward Venture was reportedly carrying military cargo to the northern Gulf region.
It will be interesting to see if an Iranian video of the incident surfaces.
Galrahn at Information Dissemination is reporting that a security detachment fired M-16s at a small IRGC/N vessel at about 100 yards.
http://informationdissemination.blogspot.com/2008/04/report-ship-opens-fire-on-pasdaran.html
Using M16s to fire at IRGC boats, that’s real close. Press TV was reporting today that IRGC has denied the incident altogether.
Fox News and CNN reported that they started firing .50 cal machine guns before using M-16s. Seems our suicidal countrymen really wanted to start a shooting war.
btw, you may want to check airliners website for some great photos of the Iranian air force.
Thanks for the tip, Winston. Last time I checked Airliners there was a great shot of a refurbished F-14A Tomcat, serial 6-6020.
There are more pics available now... You'll like it
If Iran was simply testing the waters, then this was a successful reconnaissance mission for them. To me, this shows that the US ships are extremely hesitant to engage an approaching vessel and now the Iranians know that they can get incredibly close before a US ship will use lethal force - assuming that it will use lethal force at all.
To start out with .50 caliber fire from a distance, continue firing as the ship closes in, and then continue to fire warning shots with M16s shows a tremendous reluctance to engage with lethal force. What is the purpose of a warning shot if you have no intention of escalating to lethal force? It appears the US ship had no such intention, despite the boat closing to within a frighteningly close proximity. I cannot help but think that if this was indeed an IRGC/N boat, then their report to their higher headquarters was, "we are able to deliberately close within a lethal distance of US vessels without consequences. Mission accomplished."
This is the link to airliners
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