{"id":194156,"date":"2019-09-02T07:58:26","date_gmt":"2019-09-02T07:58:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=194156"},"modified":"2019-09-04T04:36:29","modified_gmt":"2019-09-04T04:36:29","slug":"upping-the-odds-in-the-gulf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=194156","title":{"rendered":"Upping the Odds in the Gulf"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">British drones attacking ISIS in Iraq and Syria could be sent to Gulf to protect shipping from Iran in the wake of tanker crisis<\/h3>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Larissa Brown \u2013 Daily Mail Online Sept 2, 2019<\/strong><\/h1>\n<div id=\"attachment_69803\" style=\"width: 580px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2002\/10\/Armed-drone-missions-over-Afghanistan-flown-from-UK-airbase.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-69803\" class=\"size-full wp-image-69803\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2002\/10\/Armed-drone-missions-over-Afghanistan-flown-from-UK-airbase.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"570\" height=\"405\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-69803\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Armed Reaper drones were once controlled by pilots in the UK to fly combat missions over Afghanistan. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Drones targeting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria could be redeployed to the Gulf to help protect shipping from Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Navy chiefs have requested surveillance support to combat the threat from Iranian forces in the Strait of Hormuz.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The most senior Briton in the Gulf, Commodore Dean Bassett, the UK\u2019s maritime component commander, said Britain was \u2018actively looking\u2019 at options to boost its military presence. It is understood one option being considered is sending Reaper aircraft, currently on Operation Shader fighting Isis, to carry out surveillance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The UK currently has two warships in the region equipped with helicopters with surveillance capabilities. However, they are reliant on US unmanned vehicles to spot Iranian vessels further away.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Cdre Bassett said: \u2018In the last couple of months we have seen a dramatic change in the security threat in the area&#8230; What we are looking for is a mix of capabilities so that we can provide persistent surveillance.\u2019 Asked what he needed, he said: \u2018It could be a drone, it could be a maritime patrol aircraft, it could be a helicopter on the back of a ship, it could be a ship.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Iran frequently sends drones close to UK warships and British-flagged merchant vessels in the region.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The UK scrapped its maritime patrol aircraft programme in 2010 but will be replacing it next year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-7417587\/British-drones-attacking-ISIS-Iraq-Syria-sent-Gulf-protect-shipping-Iran.html\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>British drones attacking ISIS in Iraq and Syria could be sent to Gulf to protect shipping from Iran in the wake of tanker crisis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Current_Affairs","category-Iran"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=194156"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":194160,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194156\/revisions\/194160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=194156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=194156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=194156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}