{"id":114262,"date":"2021-06-05T12:50:04","date_gmt":"2021-06-05T16:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=114262"},"modified":"2021-06-05T12:50:04","modified_gmt":"2021-06-05T16:50:04","slug":"iranian-warships-round-the-horn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=114262","title":{"rendered":"Iranian Warships Round the Horn"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nIRIS Sahand<\/em><\/p>\n

Two Iranian Navy ships, the frigate Sahand <\/em>and Makran<\/em>, a former oil tanker that was converted to a floating forward staging base, have rounded the Cape of Good Hope and entered the Atlantic. National security officials tracking the ships do not know the ships’ final destination, but believe they are bound for Venezuela.
\nTehran’s intent in sending the ships to Venezuela is not clear, but a spox for the National Security Council noted that Venezuela purchased weapons from Iran over a year ago.
\n“We would reserve the right to take appropriate measures \u2014 in concert with our partners \u2014 to deter the delivery or transit of such weapons,” the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic.<\/p>\n

David has been sending updates as the little flotilla steamed along the east coast of Africa.<\/p>\n

Iranian warships appear to begin first Atlantic crossing as U.S. warns against weapons transfers<\/h3>\n

Lara Seligman and Nahal Toosi<\/strong><\/p>\n

Two Iranian Navy ships rounded the Cape of Good Hope for the first time and appear to be headed across the Atlantic, continuing a journey U.S. officials believe could ultimately end in Venezuela, according to a defense official with direct knowledge.<\/p>\n

Tehran has threatened to send warships to the Western Hemisphere before but has aborted previous attempts. U.S. officials are not yet overly concerned, as there is still a small window of time for the ships to turn around or head to port instead of continuing the journey, the defense official said. But a successful crossing would be a significant demonstration of Iran\u2019s naval capability and potentially provide Tehran a new foothold in America’s near abroad.<\/p>\n

The U.S. national security apparatus has been closely monitoring the ships\u2019 progress for the past two weeks. Their intent and cargo are still unknown, but the assumption is still that they could be headed toward Venezuela, the person said.<\/p>\n

Biden officials signaled this week that the administration is concerned the ships could be carrying weapons bound for Caracas and warned that the United States would act to deter such a delivery. Satellite imagery of the ship from early May provided by Maxar Technologies shows seven fast-attack boats aboard its deck.<\/p>\n

Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby noted that Venezuela purchased weapons from Iran over one year ago and warned that a new delivery “would be a provocative act and a threat to our partners in this hemisphere.”<\/p>\n

Kirby warned that the United States reserves the right \u201cto take appropriate measures \u2014 in concert with our partners \u2014 to deter the delivery or transit of such weapons.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, a U.S. defense official said on condition of anonymity there are currently no plans to send U.S. Navy ships to monitor or deter the Iranian task force.<\/p>\n

Yahoo.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Thanks, David.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IRIS Sahand Two Iranian Navy ships, the frigate Sahand and Makran, a former oil tanker that … Iranian Warships Round the Horn<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[518,387,308],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biden","category-international-affairs","category-iran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/657"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=114262"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114264,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114262\/revisions\/114264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=114262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=114262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=114262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}