Free Republic

Iran’s leaders voiced outrage this week — and even threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz — following a Republican congressman’s proposed legislation seeking a stronger response to Tehran’s recent provocative actions against the U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf, including the capture of ten Navy sailors in January. A senior Revolutionary Guard commander threatened to shut down the entrance to the Persian Gulf, where one-third of the world’s oil exports passes each day, after learning about Virginia Rep. Randy Forbes’ bill. The bill, coming in response to an incident earlier this year in which the Iranian National Guard...

The Maersk Tigris was released Thursday, more than a week after the ship was seized by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, according to a statement from the shipping company. The cargo vessel was transiting the Strait of Hormuz on April 28 when Iranian military vessels fired warning shots at the ship and directed it to proceed into Iranian waters. The ship and crew has been held ever since over a business dispute with Maersk Line. “The release follows a constructive dialogue with the Iranian authorities, including the Ports & Maritime Organization, and the provision of a letter of undertaking...

Iran has released a container ship it seized in the Strait of Hormuz last week, state media report. A source at Iran's Ports and Maritime Organisation was quoted by the official Iran news agency as saying that the Maersk Tigris "was free to leave". The Marshall Islands-flagged ship and its crew of 24 were intercepted by Iranian patrol boats on the 28 April.

U.S. Navy ships will begin to accompany U.S. flagged commercial ships as they travel the Strait of Hormuz, a defense official confirmed to Fox News, on the heels of Iran seizing a cargo ship.

What, if anything, would cause President Barack Obama to step away from the negotiating table with Iran? This is the question I find myself pondering in light of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Navy Patrol’s unchecked act of aggression on Tuesday against America’s interests in the Straits of Hormuz – an act that in a sane world would in and of itself put an end to the president's disastrous nuclear deal with Iran. As of this writing, reports indicate that the Iranian Navy Patrol fired shots at and ultimately seized a commercial cargo ship, the M/V Maersk Tigris, which flies under...

Since the conclusion of the final round of nuclear negotiations, Iran has been engaging in conspicuous displays of aggression. The U.S. Navy revealed on Tuesday that four Iranian Revolutionary Guards ships intercepted a Maersk cargo vessel in the Strait of Hormuz that was flying a U.S. flag. The episode happened last week and ended without incident, but it was only revealed to the press after Iranian naval vessels performed a similar act of belligerence on Tuesday. Yesterday, another Maersk container ship, the Tigris, was intercepted by Iranian vessels in international waters, according to the firm. Iranian ships fired over...

The shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz have long been highlighted as a potential flashpoint amid the simmering geopolitical tensions between the United States and Iran. Its waters are of particular geostrategic significance given that over a third of the world’s petroleum traded by sea passes through the region. Iran has repeatedly emphasized its dominance over the waters, threatening to blockade the strait in a time of crisis. Today, we saw an acute manifestation of Iran’s audacity when the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) seized and escorted the Marshall Islands-flagged MV Maersk Tigris, a shipping vessel belonging to...

Arab intelligence agencies tell European countries that Irans military is ready to close Strait of Hormuz if nuclear talks fail. - Ch. 10

Though Iran’s Great Prophet-9 military exercise ended last month, you can count on Tehran’s military to wring every last drop of bellicosity from the event—such as showing off an apparently armed drone taking a bead on a ship crossing the Strait of Hormuz. Iran conducted the exercise during the last week of February, and centered it around the theatrical, Michael Bay-esque destruction of a stationary wooden aircraft carrier prop floating off Iran’s Larak Island.

The United States is closing its embassy in Yemen amid political deadlock and deteriorating security conditions after the takeover of the country by Shiite rebels, two U.S. officials said. The officials said diplomats were being evacuated from the country on Tuesday and the embassy will suspend operations until conditions improve. Yemen has been in crisis for months with Iran-linked Shiite Houthi rebels besieging the capital and then taking control. The U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the closure publicly on the record.

The Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution have used the social network to make public their plan to attack enemy ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), the branch of Iran’s military whose role is to protect Tehran’s Islamic system, have published on Twitter an interesting drawing showing how they imagine an attack to an enemy warship entering the Persian Gulf. The plan is use several different weapons systems in a coordinated attack opened by high speed boats, used to create a diversion. According to Good Morning Iran blog, that translated the text...

SNIPPET: "Two U.S. planes have flown radical Muslim preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri and four other suspected terrorists to the United States, hours after Britain's High Court cleared the way for their extradition. The planes departed a Royal Air Force base immediately after the British High Court rejected last-minute appeals by Hamza and the others. The five had raised legal questions about human rights and prison conditions they expected to face in the United States. In rejecting the appeals, the British court cited an “overwhelming public interest” in seeing the extraditions carried out. Hamza is wanted on U.S. charges that include...

Iran’s state TV is reporting the country’s navy has begun maneuvers in the area of the Strait of Hormuz, where one-fifth of the world’s oil passes. … Iran has threatened to close the straits over Western sanctions but has not repeated the threats lately. …

Iran could be planning to create a vast oil spill in the Strait of Hormuz, according to a top secret report obtained by Western intelligence officials. The aim of the operation is to both temporarily block the vital shipping channel and to force a suspension of Western sanctions. … The goal of the plan seems to be that of contaminating the strait so as to temporarily close the important shipping route for international oil tankers, thereby "punishing" the Arab countries that are hostile to Iran and forcing the West to join Iran in a large-scale cleanup operation—one that might require...

If hostilities break out over any disruption of traffic through this busy sea lane, the Navy had better look long and hard at Iran’s anti-access/area-denial capabilities. In 2010, Dr. Shmuel Bar, director of studies at the Institute of Policy and Strategy in Herzliya, Israel, wrote the following:

Are matters coming to a head in the Middle East? According to a report by Sean Rayment of the UK Telegraph, the leaders of the United States are going to meet tomorrow, something that had previously not been announced, as annual naval exercises - the largest ever, are to bring a large flotilla of western vessels to the Strait of Hormuz:

An armada of US and British naval power is massing in the Persian Gulf in the belief that Israel is considering a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s covert nuclear weapons programme. Battleships, aircraft carriers, minesweepers and submarines from 25 nations are converging on the strategically important Strait of Hormuz in an unprecedented show of force as Israel and Iran move towards the brink of war. Western leaders are convinced that Iran will retaliate to any attack by attempting to mine or blockade the shipping lane through which passes around 18 million barrels of oil every day, approximately 35 per cent of...

An oil tanker collided with a U.S. Navy destroyer near the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday but no one was hurt and shipping traffic in the waterway, through which 40 percent of the world's seaborne oil exports pass, was not affected, officials said. "Both vessels are okay and the Strait of Hormuz is not closed, and business is as usual there," an Oman coast guard official told Reuters, declining to be named under briefing rules. The collision nevertheless left a gaping hole in the starboard side of USS Porter, a guided-missile destroyer suffered, but no one was injured on either...

Iran renewed threats on Sunday to close the Strait of Hormuz unless sanctions against it were revoked, though it remains unclear how Tehran could shut down the vital oil shipping channel given the significant American military presence there. The Iranian parliament is considering a bill calling for the strait to be closed. The assembly has little control over national defense and foreign policy decisions and, while the bill would be largely symbolic, it would indicate the legislature's support behind any leadership decision to close the strait. … Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz shipping channel, through...

MANAMA, Bahrain, June 8 (UPI) -- The U.S. Navy is doubling the size of its Persian Gulf naval base at Manama, which officials say will greatly enhance the capabilities of the U.S. 5th Fleet, which has headquarters in the island state. Officials are reluctant to link the $580 million expansion to the confrontation with Iran across the gulf.They say the project has been in the works since 2003 in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But it coincides with a sharp increase in Iranian naval activity in the gulf in recent weeks.Work on the upgrade began late in...