President Donald Trump on Wednesday tweeted that he had instructed the U.S. Navy to fire on Iranian boats harassing U.S. ships, a week after a tense encounter in the Persian Gulf.
“I have instructed the U.S. Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea,” Trump said.
Earlier, the U.S. military said that 11 Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGC) boats had repeatedly approached U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf in a dangerous and harassing manner.
According to the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, they approached the six U.S. ships at high speed in some cases within about nine metres.
It, however, said that it had to avoid collision with evasive manoeuvres and luckily nobody was injured.
According to the U.S. forces, the Iranian boats violated the safety rules of shipping and international law with dangerous and provocative actions.
The incident occurred in international waters during an exercise involving Apache attack helicopters.
The U.S. has classified Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organisation.
Trump’s tweet came hours after Iran launched a military satellite into space.
According to the state-run News Agency Irna, the Revolutionary Guards launched the “Nur-1” (Light-1) satellite on Wednesday in an undisclosed desert area and successfully placed it in an orbit at a height of 425 kilometres in two stages.
The U.S. is generally critical of the Iranian satellite programme due to fears that Iran may use space technology to build long-range military missiles.
