TEHRAN – Iranian speedboats belonging to the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGG) have intercepted U.S. vessels in the Persian Gulf.
Aired on Thursday, a footage filmed from one of the IRGC speedboats shows at least one vessel with the U.S. flag and several personnel on board as at least two speedboats appear to be chasing it. Other non-Iranian vessels in the video appear to be also American.
A voice is heard in the footage, saying in Farsi: “Keep chasing them.”
Cmdr. Timothy Hawkins, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy’s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, said he wasn’t aware of any sort of unsafe interaction with Iran in the last two days.
The report is the first such report in recent months.
In May, the IRGC rejected the U.S. Navy’s claim that fast-approaching Iranian speedboats in the Strait of Hormuz sparked a tense encounter a day after the U.S. said the IRGC sent 13 armed speedboats too close to U.S. Navy vessels in the Strait.
For a long time, Iran has demanded an end to the United States’ hostile presence in the Persian Gulf, where Washington has deployed a remarkable number of military assets thousands of kilometers away from its soil.
Iran has also called on its Persian Gulf Arab neighbors to enter dialogue on how to establish security in the region without any foreign military presence.