Posted on 01/12/2016 2:26:41 PM PST by Signalman
Washington (CNN)Ten American sailors are in Iranian custody after two small U.S. naval craft apparently briefly entered Iranian territorial waters, a U.S. senior defense official said Tuesday.
The official, however, expects the situation to be resolved quickly. A senior administration official said there is nothing to indicate this was anything hostile on the part of any entity in Iran, adding that the U.S. has received high-level assurances that the sailors will be released promptly.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told CNN's Jake Tapper that President Barack Obama will be in touch with members of Congress about the incident.
"Certainly, everybody should be aware of the fact we have been in touch with the Iranians and they have assured us that our sailors are safe and that they'll be allowed to continue their journey promptly," Earnest said.
A U.S. official said the sailors may be spending the night in Iran, and it's not expected that they would depart until after daylight.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Not by me. Hope that it ends up being an ‘all’s well that ends well’ thing.
Er...the genie's already out of the bottle. Like you said, it was a clandestine op.
Hostages to releasing the funds frozen by the sanctions?
There was a time when the Iranian military would have soiled itself at the site of our warships sailing into their waters.
Now they have us in a headlock and are giving us noogies.
This is what Obama believes America deserves.
There are Iran-backed shia protests going on in Bahrain this week and Bahrain nabbed a Hezbollah terrorist cell. Bahrain just severed diplomatic ties with Iran.
They could have lost power, and the current and wind carried them to a shore.
Were they in the sovereign waters of Iran? I am hearing they were. DON’T DO THAT!! They better get released tomorrow or this is a huge story!!
Well... Iran thinks they have a historic claim to Bahrain and have been stirring up trouble there because the population is mostly Shiite while the monarchy is not. Iran would like to overthrow the government there. So in Iranian eyes, Bahrain’s waters should be Iran’s waters... in all liklihood the boats were in Bahrain’s waters all along.
Iran previously took a British boat crew captive who were well inside
Iraqi waters but endeavored to force them to “admit” they were in Iranian rather than Iraqi waters... that probably also had to do with trying to legitimize territorial ambitions.
We don’t know that.
Obama ignored this in the SOTU unless I missed it. Not a word about their welfare or why they were so vulnerable when seized. I guess the media spin will have him saying something like the Iranians rescued our guys and let them spend the night. Their little boats ran out of gas and our friends the Iranians rescued them.
Really? How do you come to that conclusion?
This was a clandestine op that went bad. Hopefully, they'll just ask a few questions, let them go, and keep the boats & their top secret gadgets. If the chickenhawks start howling they will be highly irresponsible.
They probably just went off course from Kuwait to Bahrain or they were intercepted in international waters, but Obama will cover for the Iranians so as not to lose the Iranian deal.
10 U.S. sailors in Iranian custody
The current record is 444 days.
:-) Good one!
FReepers have the quickest and sharpest sense of humor.
These boats don't just stall and drift into Iranian waters.
These guys were doing something clandestine, made a mistake, and got caught. We need to STFU and hope against hope that there are a few sane people left in the military and diplomatic ranks who will get these guys back before there is a tragedy.
I'm an ex-Navy guy and don't agree with that conclusion. We really don't know what happened. DOD does. It could very well be that the Iranians intercepted them in international waters and the Obama administration is covering it up to protect the Iran deal. This is not a replay of the USS Pueblo.
We have other ways to insert people into areas that we are interested in.
We need to STFU and hope against hope that there are a few sane people left in the military and diplomatic ranks who will get these guys back before there is a tragedy.
Who needs to STFU? The American people? The Iranians sent a missile about a mile next to one of our carriers in the Straits of Hormuz. The carrier was in international waters. We did nothing in response.
"A U.S. aircraft carrier came within about 1,500 yards of an Iranian rocket while operating in the Strait of Hormuz, a Pentagon official told CNN.
"While transiting the strait that sits at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, the USS Harry S. Truman had the encounter while the Iranian Revolutionary Guards were conducting a live-fire exercise in the area on Saturday, according to Cmdr. Kyle Raines, a U.S. Central Command spokesman."
A U.S. military officials added that while the Iranians did not appear to be targeting any specific ships with the exercise, their actions were "unnecessarily provocative and unsafe."
Iran held our diplomats for 444 days. They currently hold four Americans, Should we STFU about that?
Someone get word to our captured Naval personnel who are now being interrogated by the Iranians, that Obama told the country how strong and tough we are tonight.
Ah, Memories. Those folks were released January 20, 1981, why does that date ring a bell I wonder?
Remember how the (D)ummycrats immediately set about a disinformation campaign to downplay the impact that incoming President-Elect Reagan had over current events. Heck, I still have a Nuke Iran button around here somewhere. The (D)ummies actually concocted a story that VP-Elect Bush jumped on a Blackbird and zoomed over to Iran to stall Jimmy Carter's "negotiations" to give them the credit instead. They are truly (D)ummies.
Strange how lunatics always seem to test (D)ummycrat Presidents at the end of their administrations but test the (R) Presidents early on. Bush43 had his Chinese test very early and wasn't exactly his shining moment but it was forgotten thanks to 9/11.
Ronaldus Maximus on the other hand, got his test in August 1981 with Khadafy sowing his wild oats in the med, probably thinking the Reagan assassination attempt a few months earlier slowed down the old boy.
Splash two Migs ( or some similar bird ).
Movies like Top Gun and songs like Danger Zone can never be associated with (D)ummycrat administrations.
One of the links I just posted ( my history ) says this is a very common area for spying on each other - US and Iran, that is.
"Pentagon officials told the Associated Press the two boats drifted into Iranian waters after facing mechanical problems." The Guardian this morning.
Don’t you just love how in those quotes the editors arranged the words in such a way as to absolve the Iranians of all responsibility for the events described?
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