London, Jan 25: A warning went out to seafarers in the Persian Gulf on Friday over what appeared to be attempts by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to compel ships to enter Iranian waters, probably explained by the paramilitary’s ongoing naval exercises.A notice from the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations says that there have been “several incidents involving VHF radio challenges to vessels.
“It is assessed that these are most likely part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ large-scale exercise, Great Prophet XVIII,” UKMTO said.
Iran has been engaged in an extraordinary two-month-long military exercise across the country after being twice hit by Israel in retaliation for two separate ballistic missile attacks launched by Tehran.
Naval units from the IRGC were indeed conducting operations in the Gulf’s Strait of Hormuz on Friday as part of the exercise, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.
Earlier, the UKMTO reported an incident involving a vessel 86 nautical miles northeast of Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia. The ship, which was approached by a small military craft flashing a green laser and urged to enter Iranian territorial waters, proceeded to its next port of call.
The Red Sea and Gulf of Aden Joint Maritime Information Center, part of a 46-nation naval partnership, said on Friday it had investigated and found there was a possible connection between the incident reported by UKMTO and the Great Prophet 19 exercise.
While Iran has a history of harassing and impounding vessels, it hasn’t directly launched many such attacks recently. Instead, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels have been attacking ships since November 2023.
Iranian media has reported a likely IRGC exercise in the Persian Gulf coming this weekend as well.