January 8, 200818 yr Author From DefenseNews Posted 01/07/08 12:51 Iran Denies Threat Against U.S. By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Iran on Jan. 8 rejected U.S. charges that its naval forces threatened to blow up American ships in the Strait of Hormuz, amid renewed tensions ahead of U.S. President George W. Bush’s visit to the region. U.S. defense officials said five speedboats from the naval forces of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards menaced three U.S. warships in the strategic waterway on Sunday, radioing a threat to blow them up. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described the incident as "provocative" and "dangerous" amid fears such an encounter could spark a major confrontation between the two foes. But Iranian officials expressed bewilderment over the U.S. version of events, saying the encounter was a routine question of identification that ended with nothing special to report. "What happened between the Guards and foreign vessels was an ordinary identification," Ali Reza Tangsiri, commander of the Guards naval forces in the region, told the Mehr news agency. "No special engagement took place between the Guards and the foreign side," he said, adding that the Guards’ naval forces had a right to monitor and identify "any vessel entering Persian Gulf waters" to the northwest. State television quoted an unnamed Guards source in the region as saying: "No threatening message was transmitted." A U.S. Defense Department official had quoted the Iranian radio transmission as saying: "I’m coming at you and you will blow up in a couple of minutes." Crew aboard two of the five speedboats also dumped floating boxes into the path of one of the vessels during the encounter, but it passed them without any shots being fired, U.S. officials said. "It was provocative, and that kind of provocation is dangerous. I would sincerely hope that the Iranians would refrain from any such activity," Rice told the BBC’s Arabic service in an interview. Iran is "the single greatest threat to the kind of Middle East we all want to see," she added in an interview to the Jerusalem Post and the Ynet Web site. The incident came just days ahead of Bush’s departure Jan. 8 for a crucial trip to the Middle East, a visit that Iran has already slammed as unnecessary meddling in the region He aims to boost the Israeli-Palestinian peace process but will also reiterate to U.S. allies in the region that Washington continues to view Iran as a threat. Iranian media and analysts, expressing suspicion over the U.S. version of events, described it as a propaganda stunt to tarnish Iran ahead of Bush’s talks. "This action is routine and it is quite normal for ships to ask other ships to identify themselves. But because of Bush’s visit to the region, the incident took on a particular scale," said conservative analyst Amir Mohebian. The Strait of Hormuz is a vital conduit for energy supplies, with about 20 to 25 percent of the world’s crude oil supplies passing through from Gulf oil producers. It was Iranian Revolutionary Guards who in March last year seized 15 British sailors and Marines in Gulf waters and held them at a secret location before releasing them in Tehran two weeks later. "The biggest danger is that things snowball as a result of a calculation error, for example if the Iranians complacently think that the other side will not dare react to their provocations," said one western diplomat in Tehran.
January 8, 200818 yr Author From DefenseNews Top admiral details U.S.-Iranian encounter By Philip Ewing - Staff writer Posted : Tuesday Jan 8, 2008 10:37:01 EST Five Iranian high-speed attack craft accosted a trio of U.S. Navy warships Sunday in the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. 5th Fleet commander said, prompting evasive maneuvers by the U.S. ships and reportedly bringing them close to opening fire. No one was hurt and the Iranian boats withdrew before any shots were fired, but Pentagon and White House officials stressed Monday that the incident was dangerously provocative in the choke point through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil passes. The cruiser Port Royal, the destroyer Hopper and the frigate Ingraham were in international waters on their way into the Persian Gulf around 8 a.m. local time Sunday when the Iranian encounter occurred, said Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff, speaking to Pentagon reporters via a satellite video uplink Monday afternoon. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps attack boats approached the U.S. ships’ starboard bows, Cosgriff said, and broke left and right into two groups on either side of the Americans, even passing between the warships as they steamed in formation. The boats passed between 200 and 500 yards of the U.S. surface group, and Iranian sailors from two boats dropped “white, box-like objects” that floated in the water ahead of the Ingraham, Cosgriff said. But the U.S. captains ordered evasive turns and the three warships passed clear of the objects in the water. Cosgriff confirmed that the Iranian sailors also sent a hostile radio message to the U.S. crews that translated approximately to, “we’re closing with you, and your ships are going to explode.” As the U.S. warships and Iranian boats maneuvered near each other, U.S. commanders warned the Iranians with radio messages and blasts of the ships’ horns. At least one ship’s captain reported he was about to open fire when the Iranians broke off, Cosgriff confirmed. The incident was over after about 30 minutes, Cosgriff said, when the Iranian attack boats returned in the direction from which they had come. The encounter was “needlessly provocative,” he said. “I am concerned with unnecessary and irresponsible maneuvering by the part of those patrol boats, in international waters in an area traversed by numerous ships every day. When they act that way it raises the risk of a miscalculation on their part that somebody might take it too far when we are stepping through our procedures,” Cosgriff said. He added that he was “very proud” of the way the U.S. crews behaved in the situation. Cosgriff didn’t speculate what the white boxes were or say what weapons he thought the Iranian boats were carrying, although he did state specifically they were not armed with anti-ship missiles. All told, the encounter was “more serious than we’ve seen,” Cosgriff said, and pointed out that the three U.S. ships had passed an Iranian warship during their transit of the Strait of Hormuz and that encounter had been “correct.” The Pentagon and the White House both criticized Iran over the incident, but their language seemed designed to keep from further escalating tensions in the Gulf. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell called the incident “perplexing,” and a White House statement said it was “provocative” and called for the Iranians to stop. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, speaking aboard the amphibious transport dock New Orleans during a visit to San Diego, called the incident “troubling.” “This is a very volatile area and the risk of an incident and of an incident escalating is real,” Gates said. I can’t imagine what was on their minds. ... I think that it is a reminder that there is a very unpredictable government in Tehran. And it would be nice to see the Iranian government disavow this action and say that it won’t happen again.” Gates also said that “based on all the information that is available to me, this is a one-sided provocation.” The Revolutionary Guards Corps is a semi-autonomous paramilitary arm of the Iranian government that has been officially declared a terrorist group by the U.S.; it was blamed for supplying weapons to Iraqi insurgents, and in March 2007, its naval arm captured 15 British sailors and marines in the northern Persian Gulf. Iran exploited the troops in a propaganda coup before releasing them to the U.K. two weeks later. The Strait of Hormuz encounter took place two days before President Bush’s planned trip to the Middle East, underscoring the issue of U.S.-Iranian relations that Bush hoped to address with leaders in Israel, Kuwait, Egypt and other Arab states. William H. McMichael contributed to this report.
January 9, 200818 yr The BBC has a short video of the incident and a recording of the radio threat here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7177946.stm I'm not sure how long this link is valid for.
January 9, 200818 yr Author From Navy Times Gulf video ‘fabricated,’ Iran says The Associated Press Posted : Wednesday Jan 9, 2008 10:13:31 EST Iran on Wednesday called video and audio released by the Pentagon showing Iranian Revolutionary Guards boats confronting U.S. warships in the Strait of Hormuz “fabricated,” an English-language state-run television station reported. State TV did not give the name of the Revolutionary Guard figure and did not offer more details about how the official knew the footage was “fabricated.” The Pentagon on Tuesday released a four-minute, 20-second video that included audio showing small Iranian boats swarming around U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf. In the recording, a man speaking in heavily accented English threatened, “I am coming to you. ... You will explode after ... minutes.” The Iranian boats appeared to ignore repeated warnings from the U.S. ships, including horn blasts and radio transmissions, according to the video, which was shot from the bridge of the destroyer Hopper. From the Hopper, after spotting the approaching Iranian boats, a U.S. Navy crew member says over the radio: “This is coalition warship. I am engaged in transit passage in accordance with international law. Intend no harm.” The audio and video recordings were made separately but were pulled together by the Navy. Often uneven and shaky, the video condenses what Navy officials have said was a 20-minute or so clash. The top Navy commander in the Persian Gulf has said the Iranian fleet of high-speed boats charged at and threatened to blow up the Navy convoy as it passed near but outside Iranian waters on Sunday. The Iranian fleet “maneuvered aggressively” and then fled as the American ship commanders were preparing to open fire, Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff said. No shots were fired. In Tehran, Iran’s Foreign Ministry has suggested that the Iranian boats had not recognized the U.S. vessels. Spokesman Mohammed Ali Hosseini played down the incident. “That is something normal that takes place every now and then for each party,” he told the state news agency IRNA. On Wednesday, Iran’s Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar reiterated that the incident was not unusual. “The identification of vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz by Iranian navy units is a natural occurrence,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Najjar. “Islamic Republic of Iran Navy units always put questions to passing vessels and warships at the Strait of Hormuz and they need to identify themselves. This is in accordance with the normal procedures.” Najjar called Western news reports that the boats threatened to blow up the U.S. warships as “mischief.” “[iranian] Navy units ... asked them to identify themselves. They responded accordingly and continued their path,” IRNA quoted Najjar as saying. President Bush on Tuesday denounced the incident as a “provocative act.” “It is a dangerous situation,” Bush said during a White House news conference. “They should not have done it, pure and simple. ... I don’t know what their thinking was, but I’m telling you what my thinking was. I think it was a provocative act.” Cosgriff also has disputed Iran’s claims that the incident was a routine encounter, saying Iran’s “provocative” actions were “deadly serious” to the U.S. military.
January 12, 200818 yr Author From Navy Times ‘Filipino Monkey’ may be behind radio threats, ship drivers say By Andrew Scutro and David Brown Posted : Friday Jan 11, 2008 17:24:25 EST The threatening radio transmission heard at the end of a video showing harassing maneuvers by Iranian patrol boats in the Strait of Hormuz may have come from a locally famous heckler known among ship drivers as the “Filipino Monkey.” Since the Jan. 6 incident was announced to the public a day later, the U.S. Navy has said it’s unclear where the voice came from. In the videotape released by the Pentagon on Jan. 8, the screen goes black at the very end and the voice can be heard, distancing it from the scenes on the water. “We don’t know for sure where they came from,” said Cmdr. Lydia Robertson, spokeswoman for 5th Fleet in Bahrain. “It could have been a shore station.” While the threat — “I am coming to you. You will explode in a few minutes” — was picked up during the incident, further jacking up the tension, there’s no proof yet of its origin. And several Navy officials have said it’s difficult to figure out who’s talking. “Based on my experience operating in that part of the world, where there is a lot of maritime activity, trying to discern [who is speaking on the radio channel] is very hard to do,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead told Navy Times during a brief telephone interview today. Indeed, the voice in the audio sounds different from the one belonging to an Iranian officer shown speaking to the cruiser Port Royal over a radio from a small open boat in the video released by Iranian authorities. He is shown in a radio exchange at one point asking the U.S. warship to change from the common bridge-to-bridge channel 16 to another channel, perhaps to speak to the Navy without being interrupted. Further, there’s none of the background noise in the audio released by the U.S. that would have been picked up by a radio handset in an open boat. So with Navy officials unsure and the Iranians accusing the U.S. of fabrications, whose voice was it? In recent years, American ships operating in the Middle East have had to contend with a mysterious but profane voice known by the ethnically insulting handle of “Filipino Monkey,” likely more than one person, who listens in on ship-to-ship radio traffic and then jumps on the net shouting insults and jabbering vile epithets. Navy women — a helicopter pilot hailing a tanker, for example — who are overheard on the radio are said to suffer particularly degrading treatment. Several Navy ship drivers interviewed by Navy Times are raising the possibility that the Monkey, or an imitator, was indeed featured in that video. Rick Hoffman, a retired captain who commanded the cruiser Hue City and spent many of his 17 years at sea in the Gulf was subject to the renegade radio talker repeatedly, often without pause during the so-called “Tanker Wars” of the late 1980s. “For 25 years there’s been this mythical guy out there who, hour after hour, shouts obscenities and threats,” he said. “He could be tied up pierside somewhere or he could be on the bridge of a merchant ship.” And the Monkey has stamina. “He used to go all night long. The guy is crazy,” he said. “But who knows how many Filipino Monkeys there are? Could it have been a spurious transmission? Absolutely.” Furthermore, Hoffman said radio signals have a way of traveling long distances in that area. “Under certain weather conditions I could hear Bahrain from the Strait of Hormuz.” Cmdr. Jeff Davis, a Navy spokesman at the Pentagon, could not say if the voice belonged to the heckler. “It’s an international circuit and we’ve said all along there were other ships and shore stations in the area,” he said. When asked if U.S. officials considered whether the threats came from someone besides the Iranians when releasing the video and audio, Roughead said: “The reason there is audio superimposed over the video is it gives you a better idea of what is happening.” Similarly, Davis said the audio was part of the “totality” of the situation and helped show the “aggressive behavior.” Another former cruiser skipper said he thought the Monkey might be behind the audio threats when he first heard them earlier this week. “It wouldn’t have surprised me at all,” he said. “There’s all kinds of chatter on Channel 16. Anybody with a receiver and transmitter can hear something’s going on. It was entirely plausible and consistent with the radio environment to interject themselves and make a threatening comment and think they’re being funny.” This former skipper also noted how quiet and clean the radio “threat” was, especially when radio calls from small boats in the chop are noisy and cluttered. “It’s a tough environment, you’re bouncing around, moving fast, lots of wind, noise. It’s not a serene environment,” he said. “That sounded like somebody on the beach or a large ship going by.” He said he and others believe that the Filipino Monkey is comprised of several people, and whoever gets on Channel 16 to heckle instantly gets the monicker. “It was just a gut feeling, something the merchants did. Guys would get bored, one guy hears it, comes back a year later and does it for himself,” he said. “I never thought it was one, rather it was part of the woodwork.” The former skipper noted that he warned his crew about hecklers when preparing to transit Hormuz. “I tell them they’ll hear things on there that will be insulting,” he said. “You tell your people that you’ll hear things that are strange, insulting, aggravating, but you need to maintain a professional posture.” A civilian mariner with experience in that region said the Filipino Monkey phenomenon is worldwide, and has been going on for years. “They come on and say ‘Filipino Monkey’ in a strange voice. They might say it two or three times. You’re standing watch on bridge and you’re monitoring Channel 16 and all of a sudden it comes over the radio. It can happen anytime. It’s been a joke out there for years.” While it happens all over the world, it’s more likely to occur around the Strait of Hormuz because there is so much shipping traffic, he said.
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