Iran Seizes Three British Vessels, 8 Crewmen

Iran Forum

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran seized three British naval boats Monday, which it said had entered its waters near the Iraqi border, and arrested eight British crew.

Britain reported it had "lost contact" with military personnel in the narrow Shatt al-Arab waterway between Iran and Iraq and later said they were being held by Iran.

"We can confirm that eight Royal Navy personnel from the Royal Navy training team based in southern Iraq have been detained by the Iranian authorities while delivering a boat from Umm Qsar to Basra," Britain's Ministry of Defense said.

A Defense Ministry spokesman said Britons were in the area helping to train Iraqi police.

While Tehran was deeply opposed to the U.S.-led war and occupation of Iraq, there has been little direct conflict up to now between the Shi'ite Muslim state and foreign forces along its western border.

The incident is likely to place further strain on Tehran's ties with London, which last week joined other European nations in condemning Iran for being less than fully cooperative with inspectors from the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog.

"This morning three British vessels with eight crew entered the Islamic Republic of Iran's waters and Iran's naval forces, acting on their legal duty, confiscated the vessels and arrested the crew," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said in a statement.

"The crew are under investigation in order to clarify the issue," he added.

REUTERS
Mon Jun 21, 2004 02:27 PM ET

Hopefully this will sorted out soon if not we send in the SAS, Marines and RBS to get them out. It appears to be agenuine mistake and also we are not in any conglict with Iran so it blow over with the righ diplomatic skills.

The Brits better not be harmed in anyway.

The UK navy sailors have a reputaion for toughing things out and like I said if things to go tits up then the Iranians will have to deal with the SAs and SBS and nobody wants to deal with that lot.

The Iranians are going to have to deal with a lot of attention very soon I can tell you.

Good for the Iranians! Don't let them damn Brit A-holes into your area without permission! Treat them the way an Iranian ship would be treated in U.S. or Brit waters...it's all fair.

Countries I hate: UK and Israel.

Shut your mouth. Inciteful moron juvenile.

It seems that the Iranians are attempting to get some mediatization of their having a nerve to arrest a few "crusaders" militaries. Good occasion for them to gain some weight in the area, by seizing the opportnunity that the allies are facing difficulties in Iraq to jump on the stage. It is a political calculation on their part, and it has to do with Iraq, where they would like a fundamentalist shi'ite islamic entity to prevail, governed by leaders à la Iran ones - sort of twin dictatorship in the area. The US sows, they reap the fruits.

The success of this coup is far to be evident however. I believe they would be better not messing with the Brits. If things turn bad this could be the beginning of a big upheaval there. With muslim countries on one side and western ones on another. Bin Laden's part 3 of his agenda (1: attempts 2: messy invasion 3: global clash)

Well the Iranians have either seen sense because they have said the sailors will be released tonight or tomorrow. They had better be telling the truth because it seem like politicians in the UK are running out of patience.

The sialors and marines were released late this morning. Though the fall out from this incident is over the UK and MOD are apparently really angry about the servicemen being blindfolded, Humiltaed and force to apologise on live TV, all these things go against international law, and I have a felling that Iran's ambassador to the UK will be called back to the foreign office for another dressing down.

Yeah but there is a big diffrence because the Brits and the Iraqis are not at war, we did not invade Iran and Iran did not decalre war on us. This is a completly diffrent scenario than what is happening in Iraq, if we had been at war with Iran then I would not complain or if the sailors had been captured by Iraqis then I would not complain because that is the risks you take in war.

Mind you Iraqi insurgents are killing terrorists at least the Iranians had the guts to take the fight to real soldiers.