Iran’s navy seized two US sea drones in the Red Sea before letting them go on Friday as US warships neared, US officials said, in the latest maritime incident involving the US Navy’s new drone fleet in the Middle East.
Iranian state television aired footage it said came from the deck of the Iranian Jamaran destroyer, where sailors in life jackets examined what appeared to be two US-made Saildrone Explorers.
They tossed one overboard as another warship could be seen in the distance.
Photo: AP
Iran has no coastline along the Red Sea, a crucial international waterway between the Arabian Peninsula and northeastern Africa.
State TV said the Iranian warship found “several unmanned spying vessels abandoned in the international maritime routes” on Thursday.
“After two warnings to an American destroyer to prevent possible incidents, Jamaran seized the two vessels,” state TV said. “After securing the international shipping waterway, the Naval Squadron No. 84 released the vessels in a safe area.”
“The US Navy was warned to avoid repeating similar incidents in future,” it said.
The US Navy’s Fifth Fleet later identified the seized drones as Saildrone Explorers.
Those drones are commercially available and used by a variety of clients, including scientists, to monitor open waters.
“The unmanned surface vessels were unarmed and taking unclassified photos of the surrounding environment while loitering in an assigned patrol area at least 4 nautical miles [7.4km] from the nearest maritime traffic lane,” it said. “The vessels posed no risk to naval traffic and had been operating in the general vicinity of the southern Red Sea for more than 200 consecutive days without incident.”
The guided-missile destroyers USS Nitze and USS Delbert D. Black responded to the drone seizure at 2pm on Thursday and each deployed MH-60 Sea Hawk helicopters, the Fifth Fleet said.
Iran released the drones at 8am on Friday, it added.
Initially, the Iranian sailors tried to cover the drones with tarps and deny they had them, a US official said.
Cameras on the drones also went missing during the incident, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The seizure marks the second such incident in the past few days as negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers hang in the balance.
The earlier incident began on Monday night and involved Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which towed a Saildrone Explorer in the Persian Gulf before releasing it while a US warship trailed it.
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