IRGC Boats ‘Harassed’ Ship in Strait of Hormuz, US Navy Says

The navies of the United States and the United Kingdom came to the aid of a ship in the Strait of Hormuz after boats of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) “harassed” it, the US Navy says.

“Three fast-attack craft with armed personnel approached and followed the merchant vessel at close distance,”  it said in a statement on May 5. “The fast-attacked craft were assessed to be from the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy.”

The US Navy’s guided-missile destroyer USS McFaul and the Royal Navy’s frigate HMS Lancaster responded to a distress call from the ship, the statement said. The Lancaster launched a helicopter to provide surveillance and the US 5th Fleet directed a P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft to monitor the scene.

“The situation deescalated approximately an hour later when the merchant vessel confirmed the fast-attack craft departed the scene,” according to the US statement. “The merchant ship continued transiting the Strait of Hormuz without further incident.”

The statement offered black-and-white images it said came from surveillance footage from the US Navy Boeing P-8 Poseidon and showed three small ships close to the commercial ship.

The Navy did not identify the vessel involved, but ship-tracking data from MarineTraffic.com showed the Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier Venture erratically changed course as it traveled through the strategic strait at the time of the incident, The Associated Press reported.

Iranian state media and officials did not immediately acknowledge the incident, which came after a series of maritime incidents involving the Islamic Republic following the United States’ unilateral withdrawal from a nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers in 2018.