U.K. says 15 sailors detained by Iranian navy

updated 7:43 p.m. ET March 23, 2007

LONDON - Iranian naval vessels on Friday seized 15 British sailors and marines who had boarded a merchant ship in Iraqi waters of the Persian Gulf, British and U.S. officials said. Britain immediately protested the detentions, which come at a time of high tension between the West and Iran.

In London, the British government summoned the Iranian ambassador to the Foreign Office. “He was left in no doubt that we want them back,” Britain’s Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said after the meeting.

A spokesman for the U.S. Navy, which operates off the Iraqi coast along with British forces, said Iran’s Revolutionary Guard naval forces were responsible.

Cmdr. Kevin Aandahl of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet said the Iranian Revolutionary Guards had radioed a British warship explaining that no harm had come to the 15 Britons and that they were seized because they were in Iranian waters. The British Defense Ministry said the Iranians took custody of the sailors and marines in Iraqi waters.

Aandahl said a “very limited exchange of communication” occurred between the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Navy after it had intercepted the Royal Navy service members saying “that no harm had come to any personnel and that they were being taken to a place of safety.”

The Iranians said they had captured the sailors and marines because they were operating inside Iranian territorial waters.

“The Royal Navy replied that they were well inside Iraqi territorial waters (and) that was the end of the conversation,” Aandahl said.

Britain’s Defense Ministry said its men were “engaged in routine boarding operations of merchant shipping in Iraqi territorial waters,” and had completed a ship inspection when they were accosted by Iranian vessels.

“We are urgently pursuing this matter with the Iranian authorities at the highest level,” the ministry said.

Government offices closed
No one could be immediately reached for comment at either government offices in Iran or at the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad or at the U.N. mission. An Iranian official at the U.N. mission in New York said he was not aware of the report and could not immediately comment.

Iran is in the middle of its New Year holiday when almost all government offices close.

The U.S. Navy said the incident occurred just outside a long-disputed waterway called the Shatt al-Arab dividing Iraq and Iran. It came as the U.N. Security Council is debating further sanctions against Iran over its disputed nuclear program, and amid U.S. allegations that Iran is arming Shiite militias in Iraq.

U.S. officials had expressed concern that with much military hardware concentrated in the Persian Gulf, just such a small incident could spiral out of control and trigger a major armed confrontation.

The United States, Britain’s chief ally, has built up its naval forces in the gulf in a show of strength directed at Iran. Two American carriers, including the USS John C. Stennis — backed by a strike group with more than 6,500 sailors and Marines and with additional minesweeping ships — arrived in the region in recent months, ratcheting up tensions with Iran.

Rhetoric between Western nations and Iran has escalated in recent months.

Growing tension
Earlier this week, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said if Western countries “want to treat us with threats and enforcement of coercion and violence, undoubtedly they must know that the Iranian nation and authorities will use all their capacities to strike enemies that attack.”

In February, President Bush said: “The Iranian people are good, honest, decent people and they’ve got a government that is belligerent, loud, noisy, threatening — a government which is in defiance of the rest of the world and says, ’We want a nuclear weapon.”’

White House press secretary Tony Snow said the Bush administration was monitoring the situation.

“The British government is demanding the immediate safe return of the people and equipment and we are keeping watch on the situation,” Snow said.

The Britons were in two boats from the frigate H.M.S. Cornwall during a routine smuggling investigation, said the British Defense Ministry.

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