CAIRO, Egypt — A threatening radio message at the end of a video showing Iranian patrol boats swarming near U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf may have come from a prankster rather than from the Iranian vessels, the Navy Times newspaper has reported.
One of the ships was the frigate USS Ingraham, which left its homeport of Everett for Persian Gulf duty on Nov. 5.
A video and audio of the Jan. 6 incident in the Strait of Hormuz featured a man in accented English saying “I am coming to you. … You will explode after … minutes.”
Cmdr. Lydia Robertson, spokeswoman for the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, said the Navy was still trying to determine the source of the transmission but believed it was related to the Iranian actions.
“The Iranian boats were coming close to the ships, making aggressive maneuvers and objects were being dropped into the water,” she told the Associated Press.
However, the Navy Times quoted several veteran sailors as speculating the transmission could have come from a radio heckler. Sailors in the Persian Gulf have known him for years, a radio operator who has taunted and insulted passing ships at least since the 1980s. Usually, the rants are heard, logged, then mostly forgotten.
There is also the possibility that more than one broadcaster has been contacting ships over the years.
Last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said there had been two or three similar incidents over the past year, but “maybe not quite as dramatic” as the Jan. 6 confrontation. During one, in December, a U.S. ship actually fired warning shots toward an Iranian boat.
The Jan. 6 threat, however, ratcheted up tensions in the incident, which began when five Iranian patrol boats swarmed around three U.S. Navy vessels near Iranian waters in the Strait of Hormuz. The Pentagon said U.S. Navy commanders also were considering firing warning shots.
Washington released a tape of a radio transmission of a male voice speaking in heavily accented English on an open frequency: “I am coming to you. … You will explode after … minutes.” The White House called it a dangerous act, adding that the Iranian sailors also dropped boxes into the sea near the U.S. vessels.
“Inbound small craft: You are approaching a coalition warship operating in international waters. Your identity is not known; your intentions are unclear,” the unidentified Navy crew member says on the tape. He then cautions the Iranians that they would be “subject to defensive measures” if they did not pull back.
Iran has denied that its boats threatened the U.S. vessels and accused Washington of fabricating video and audio it released.
Cmdr. Jeffery James of the destroyer USS Hopper, another of the U.S. warships involved, said Sunday that it was the confluence of factors that caused most alarm.
“Whether it (the radio threat) was coincidental or not, it occurred at exactly the same time that these boats were around us, and they were placing objects in the water — so the threat appeared to be building,” James said.
Joseph Cirincione, of the liberal Center for American Progress in Washington, said the Bush administration could stand accused of having “needlessly hyped a threat for political purposes” if it’s determined the radio voice was not from Iranian forces.
“We have to take a step back and make sure we don’t hyperinflate these threats, to prevent a shooting war that nobody really wants,” Cirincione said.
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