‘Stop and Board’ Operation by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Yields Another Tanker in Strait of HormuzSimon Kent 3 May 2023
A stop-and-board operation by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Corps. helped it seize a Panamanian-flagged oil tanker in the strategic Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday.
It was the second-such capture by Tehran in under a week amid heightened tensions over its nuclear program.
AP reports the U.S. Navy published surveillance footage shot by an aerial drone of about dozen Guard speed boats swarming the tanker around 6:20 a.m.
The drone had been on a routine patrol in the area and saw the seizure, though the Navy did not receive a distress call from the Niovi itself, 5th Fleet spokesman Cmdr. Timothy Hawkins said.
Those vessels “forced the oil tanker to reverse course and head toward Iranian territorial waters off the coast of Bandar Abbas, Iran,” the Navy said.
Iran is increasingly using the tactic of swarming fast-attack watercraft to overwhelm both civilian and foreign warships in areas it deems to be its own, as Breitbart News previously reported.
The Iranian government has a fondness for modified ski boats specially equipped for the task, having an estimated 2000 in their naval forces.
“Iran’s actions are contrary to international law and disruptive to regional security and stability,” the 5th Fleet said in a statement referencing the latest example.
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https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2023/05/03/stop-and-board-operation-by-irans-revolutionary-guard-yields-another-tanker-in-strait-of-hormuz/
