{"id":236567,"date":"2021-06-20T10:20:46","date_gmt":"2021-06-20T10:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=236567"},"modified":"2021-06-21T07:25:39","modified_gmt":"2021-06-21T07:25:39","slug":"americas-bound-iranian-warships-change-course","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=236567","title":{"rendered":"Americas-bound Iranian warships change course"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arab News \u2013 June 18, 2021<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Two Iranian warships, thought to be trafficking arms to Venezuela, have changed course and are now moving up Africa\u2019s west coast.<\/p>\n

The Biden administration had been pressuring Venezuela, Cuba and other countries in the region to turn the ships away, and a senior US official warned that it would take \u201cappropriate measures\u201d to prevent the delivery of arms to its hemisphere, which it views as a threat.<\/p>\n

American officials believe that the diplomatic outreach can be credited for the ships\u2019 change of course.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Iran’s recently unvieled Sahand. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

According to US news outlet Politico, a defense official believes that the ships are now headed for Syria via the Mediterranean, or for Russia.<\/p>\n

The two ships are composed of a domestically manufactured destroyer, the Sahand, and the Makran (pictured above), a former oil tanker fitted with a helipad and other military upgrades to make it a support vessel.<\/p>\n

TankerTrackers.com tweeted: \u201cWe believe that the Iranian navy vessels MAKRAN and SAHAND are on their way to Syria in order to engage in navy exercises with Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tehran has invested considerable amounts of money and manpower to prop up the Assad regime in Syria, including by providing personnel and funding, and by arming militias.<\/p>\n

In the past, satellite imagery has shown fast attack boats on the Makran\u2019s deck \u2014 vessels regularly used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to harass the commercial and military vessels of Iran\u2019s adversaries, including US Navy and Coast Guard ships.<\/p>\n

The White House and Pentagon have refused to comment publicly on the ships\u2019 movements, but speaking before a committee last week, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told lawmakers: \u201cI\u2019m absolutely concerned about the proliferation of weapons, any type of weapons, in our neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton referred to the ships as \u201cpirate ships,\u201d saying the US\u00a0\u201chas a legitimate right of self-defense against both of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The journey that the ships have undertaken is the longest of any Iranian warship in history. US Sen. Mark Rubio tweeted: \u201cThis does not look like an oil or fuel cargo delivery.\u00a0This has all the markings of delivery on an arms sale (such as fast attack boats) to Venezuela coupled with the opportunity to project a message of strength to the Biden administration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Politico reported last year that Venezuela, also a US adversary, was considering purchasing long-range missiles from Tehran \u2014 a move considered a \u201cred line\u201d by Washington. That sale never came to pass.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. officials say efforts to persuade Venezuela, Cuba and other countries in the region to turn the ships away have succeeded. The ships may now be heading toward Syria to take part in naval drills with the Russian Navy <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":224896,"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":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Iran"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236567","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=236567"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":236572,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236567\/revisions\/236572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/224896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=236567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=236567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=236567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}