February 18, 2023
The latest attack on 'Campo
Square' follows the November 15 attack on the Pacific Zircon which was carried
out by a drone launched from Chabahar.
On February 10
an “airborne object” struck a ship that was transiting the Indian Ocean, around
300 nautical miles off the coasts of India and Oman. The details of the
incident were only revealed a week later, on February 17. BBC reporter Nafiseh
Kohnavard tweeted on Friday that Iranian drones targeted the Campo Square
commercial ship. “A US mil official confirms,” she wrote, noting that another
military source in the region said, “the attack was carried out by Iran
itself.”
Jared Szuba
wrote on Al-Monitor that “at least one Iranian drone targeted an Israeli-linked
commercial shipping tanker in the Arabian Sea on February 10, causing minor
damage, a US military official familiar with the incident confirmed to
Al-Monitor on Friday.” He noted that “the official said the United States
believes Iran was behind the attack due to the drone’s point of origin and
tracking data, but did not specify where the device was launched from or what
type of drone was used. BBC Persian first reported the incident on Friday.”
Further reports
noted that the vessel, which didn’t have cargo, was on the way from Singapore
to Fujairah in the UAE. The vessel and crew were safe after the attack and
there was only minor damage.
The attack
follows the November 15 attack on the Pacific Zircon which was carried out by a
drone launched from Chabahar. Images of the drone attack in November were later
published by CNN. “The charred remains of the drone show the numbers 229 on the
side… American and Israeli officials pointed the finger of blame at Iran –
identifying the drone as a HESA Shahed 136 similar to the Iranian-made
self-detonating drones used by Russia in Ukraine,” CNN noted. That followed the
even more serious attack in July 2021 against the Mercer Street tanker off the
coast of Oman in which British and Romanian crewmen were killed.
An emerging
pattern of attacks
The attacks in
this area are part of a pattern. In the spring of 2021 there were other
incidents, including targeting the ships Helios Ray in February, the Hyperion
Ray in April and the Lori. There was also an incident aboard the CSAV Tyndall
in early July 2021. And those incidents come after the mining attack on four
ships off Fujairah in May 2019 and the attack on two ships in June 2019 that
were transiting near the coast of Iran.
THE RECENT
incident does not seem to have made many waves. Last week reports did say the
UK had transferred evidence to the UN of weapons smuggling to the Houthis in
Yemen. The HMS Montrose had stopped the ship last year, so it wasn’t a recent
incident. However, there were some other incidents in the region around the
time Iran targeted the ship. A drone attack was reported on Isfahan in early
January. In addition, Iranian proxies targeted US forces in Tanf in Syria on
January 20 and sent a drone over US forces last week in eastern Syria.
The attack on
the ship also came before Iran’s president went to China where he discussed
regional issues with the Chinese. The attack raises questions though, why Iran
would carry out an attack and then not mention it. Regional media close to Iran
has been quiet on this issue. In fact, Iran doesn’t seem to think it is
particularly interesting. Iran sometimes brags about attacks, such as targeting
US forces in Iraq, or even Palestinian terror attacks on Israel. But Iran is
relatively quiet about its use of drones to target ships hundreds of miles off
the coast of Oman.
Are these new
attacks significant?
This leads to
questions. If Iran carries out attacks and no one reports them, and no one is
harmed, are the attacks important and do they matter? Iran has been harassing
ships for years in this region off the coast of the UAE. The attacks began back
in 2019 during tensions between the US and Iran.
They have also
increased with Israel-Iran tensions. Iran appears to have graduated from using
mines to strike ships close to Iran and the UAE, to using drones to strike
hundreds of miles off the coast. This is a good way for Iran to test its drone
capabilities. As long as the drones don’t harm the ships or crew, it seems it
doesn’t raise a lot of concerns.
However, one
might wonder what is the point of using drones to target ships if there isn’t
much damage. It could be a trial run for further Iranian drone escalation. Iran
has been shipping drones to Russia. Iran may be testing their targeting
capabilities and abilities to bring back real-time information and target
moving objects, such as ships at sea. Iran is also apparently using drones to
strike further away.
Iran marks its
target
COMMERCIAL SHIPS
are an easy target because they don’t usually have any defensive capabilities.
Also, the multiple layers of ownership and other details make it complex to
hold a country accountable because the ships themselves are involved in a
network of ownership companies and are usually flagged in countries like
Liberia. Liberia isn’t going to hold Iran accountable probably. On the other
hand, the drone attacks are far enough away that the ships are unlikely to have
any protection from naval task forces in the region, such as the US Fifth Fleet
or other ships involved in security in the region.
The Iranian
attack occurs on the eve of the important IDEX and NAVDEX defense exhibitions
in the UAE. These exhibitions will include the unveiling of products that can
defend against drones at sea. However, these kinds of expensive products are
not usually used on commercial ships. There are thousands of ships off the
coast of Oman transiting this important route. Many of them use AIS
transponders so they can be tracked easily at sea. These transponders help the
ships avoid collisions.
Nefarious
countries like Iran that want to target shipping can use this to the benefit of
the attackers. In the past, piracy used to be a major issue off the coast of
Somalia but now the Iran drone threat is also one of many issues with which
ships have to contend.
The US navy task
force operating from Bahrain has been working to deploy more unmanned surface
vessels in recent years. This is important because USVs can help in detection
and other operations over this large area of water that extends from strategic
waterways such as the Suez Canal and Straits of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb.
However, USVs
are not usually armed with counter-drone or counter-UAS systems, meaning they
can’t stop drone attacks either. This leaves a wide open area, a kind of soft
underbelly, for Iran to target and test its drones. As the world becomes more
familiar with the Iran drone threat it will be interesting to see if anything
is done regarding these incidents. The fact that the incident on February 10
went unreported for a week appears to show it is not a top priority.
Iran International moves shows to Washington, citing threats
February
18, 2023
DUBAI,
United Arab Emirates — A Farsi-language
satellite news channel based in London long critical of Iran’s theocractic
government said Saturday it had moved its broadcasts to Washington “to protect
the safety of its journalists” after being targeted by Tehran.
The
targeting of Iran International comes as Tehran also has long harassed members
of the BBC’s Persian service for their work reporting on the country. However,
the threats against Farsi-language networks broadcasting abroad have
exponentially grown as they cover the nationwide protests that have rocked Iran
since September — providing information otherwise unheard across the Islamic
Republic’s state-controlled television and radio networks.
Iran
International described making the decision after London’s Metropolitan Police
told it “about the existence of serious and immediate threats to the safety of
Iranian journalists” working there.
Reached
for comment, Iran International referred to a statement saying that “threats
had grown to the point that it was felt it was no longer possible to protect
the channel’s staff" or the public around its studio in London.
“A
foreign state has caused such a significant threat to the British public on
British soil that we have to move. Let’s be clear this is not just a threat to
our TV station but the British public at large,” the channel's general manager
Mahmood Enayat said. “Even more this is an assault on the values of
sovereignty, security and free speech that the U.K. has always held dear.”
Enayat
added: "We refuse to be silenced by these cowardly threats. We will
continue to broadcast. We are undeterred.”
The
head of the Metropolitan Police's counterterrorism unit, Assistant Commissioner
Matt Jukes, acknowledged giving advice to Iran International about the threat
and moving its operation.
Jukes
said in a statement that police and the domestic intelligence service MI5 had
foiled “15 plots since the start of 2022 to either kidnap or even kill British
or U.K.-based individuals perceived as enemies of the regime,” without
elaborating.
“We
also appreciate that talking to a media company about moving their operations
from a particular location — even though it is due to grave safety concerns —
is exceptional. The advice to relocate has not been given lightly,” Juke said.
“The situation that journalists face around the world and the fact that some
journalists face such hostile intentions of foreign states whilst in the U.K.
is a challenging reality that we are determined to confront.”
Iran's
mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.
Iran
International tied its decision to London police days earlier announcing the
arrest and charging of Austrian national Magomed-Husejn Dovtaev, 30, with
allegedly “collecting information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing
or preparing an act of terrorism.”
Police
say they arrested Dovtaev a week ago at London's Chiswick Business Park, home
to the offices of Volant Media UK Ltd., the owner of Iran International. Police
had placed armed officers around the channel in November over threats against
it.
It
wasn't immediately clear if Dovtaev had a lawyer.
Voltant
Media, once majority-owned by a Saudi national, also broadcasts another channel
called Afghanistan International.
Iran
International has focused intensely on the nationwide protests that have swept
Iran since the September death of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian-Kurdish woman earlier
detained by the country's morality police. Iran's Intelligence Ministry
describes the channel as a “terrorist organization.”
“Its
operatives and affiliates will be pursued by the Ministry of Intelligence,”
Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib said in November. “And from now on, any
kind of connection with this terrorist organization will be considered to be
tantamount to entering into terrorism and a threat to the national security of
the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
That
same month, the broadcaster said the Metropolitan Police warned that two of its
British-Iranian journalists faced threats from Iran that “represent an
imminent, credible and significant risk to their lives and those of their
families.” Meanwhile, another outspoken critic of Iran's government living in
the U.S. has faced multiple alleged plots by Tehran targeting her.
The
BBC in February filed a separate complaint to the United Nations saying there
were “increased security concerns for BBC News Persian journalists in the light
of extraterritorial threats.”
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