May 10, 2021

A United States Coast Guard ship fired about 30 warning shots after 13 vessels from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) came close to it and other American Navy vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, the Pentagon said on Monday.

This is the third encounter between the US and Iranian vessels in the past month and the second time the US has had to fire warning shots because of what they said was unsafe behaviour by Iranian vessels in the region, after a relative lull in such interactions over the past year.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the warning shots were fired after the Iranian fast boats came as close as 137 metres (450 feet) of six US military vessels, including the USS Monterey, that were escorting the guided-missile submarine Georgia.

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