Originally posted by: Moonbeam
The sailors have admitted to being in Iranian waters.
Originally posted by: palehorse74
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
The sailors have admitted to being in Iranian waters.
...according to their Iranian captors.
The waters themselves are very disputed territory, so only the Iranians believe that it's their territory.
These soldiers were kidnapped for political purposes.
Like I said, according to their Iranian captors.Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Originally posted by: palehorse74
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
The sailors have admitted to being in Iranian waters.
...according to their Iranian captors.
The waters themselves are very disputed territory, so only the Iranians believe that it's their territory.
These soldiers were kidnapped for political purposes.
Apparently the soldiers agree with the Iranians.
Originally posted by: Socio
Originally posted by: Orignal Earl
The same thing they did when the US *kidnapped* them Iranians in Iraq a month ago
Big difference this was armed Iranian military cought well inside Iraq and they were not there by mistake.
The sailors were in Iraqi water according to the UK
Hence the armed Iranian military were captured the sailors were kidnapped
Originally posted by: palehorse74
Like I said, according to their Iranian captors.Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Originally posted by: palehorse74
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
The sailors have admitted to being in Iranian waters.
...according to their Iranian captors.
The waters themselves are very disputed territory, so only the Iranians believe that it's their territory.
These soldiers were kidnapped for political purposes.
Apparently the soldiers agree with the Iranians.
If you were being held by the Iranian IRGC, I wonder what you'd agree to...
Originally posted by: palehorse74
Like I said, according to their Iranian captors.Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Originally posted by: palehorse74
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
The sailors have admitted to being in Iranian waters.
...according to their Iranian captors.
The waters themselves are very disputed territory, so only the Iranians believe that it's their territory.
These soldiers were kidnapped for political purposes.
Apparently the soldiers agree with the Iranians.
If you were being held by the Iranian IRGC, I wonder what you'd agree to...
Iran to hit back at US kidnaps
Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv
From The Sunday Times
March 18, 2007
IRAN is threatening to retaliate in Europe for what it claims is a daring undercover operation by western intelligence services to kidnap senior officers in its Revolutionary Guard.
According to Iranian sources, several officers have been abducted in the past three months and the United States has drawn up a list of other targets to be seized with the aim of destabilising Tehran?s military command.
In an article in Subhi Sadek, the Revolutionary Guard?s weekly paper, Reza Faker, a writer believed to have close links to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, warned that Iran would strike back.
?We?ve got the ability to capture a nice bunch of blue-eyed blond-haired officers and feed them to our fighting cocks,? he said. ?Iran has enough people who can reach the heart of Europe and kidnap Americans and Israelis.?
The first sign of a possible campaign against high-ranking Iranian officers emerged earlier this month with the discovery that Ali Reza Asgari, former commander of the Revolutionary Guard?s elite Quds Force in Lebanon and deputy defence minister, had vanished, apparently during a trip to Istanbul.
Asgari?s disappearance shocked the Iranian regime as he is believed to possess some of its most closely guarded secrets. The Quds Force is responsible for operations outside Iran.
Last week it was revealed that Colonel Amir Muhammed Shirazi, another high-ranking Revolutionary Guard officer, had disappeared, probably in Iraq.
A third Iranian general is also understood to be missing ? the head of the Revolutionary Guard in the Persian Gulf. Sources named him as Brigadier General Muhammed Soltani, but his identity could not be confirmed.
?This is no longer a coincidence, but rather an orchestrated operation to shake the higher echelons of the Revolutionary Guard,? said an Israeli source.
Other members of the Quds Force are said to have been seized in Irbil, in the Kurdish area of northern Iraq, by US special forces.
?The capture of Quds members in Irbil was essential for our understanding of Iranian activity in Iraq,? said an American official with knowledge of the operation.
One theory circulating in Israel is that a US taskforce known as the Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group (ISOG) is coordinating the campaign to take Revolutionary Guard commanders.
The Iranians have also accused the United States of being behind an attack on Revolutionary Guards in Iran last month in which at least 17 were killed.
Military analysts believe that Iranian threats of retaliation are credible. Tehran is notorious for settling scores. When the Israelis killed Abbas Mussawi, Hezbollah?s general secretary, in 1992 the Quds Force blew up the Israeli embassy in Argentina in revenge.
Despite the Iranian threat to retaliate in Europe, Iraq is seen by some analysts as a more likely place in which to attempt abductions.
?In Iraq, the Quds Force can easily get hold of American ? and British ? officers,? said a Jordanian intelligence source.
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Originally posted by: palehorse74
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
The sailors have admitted to being in Iranian waters.
...according to their Iranian captors.
The waters themselves are very disputed territory, so only the Iranians believe that it's their territory.
These soldiers were kidnapped for political purposes.
Apparently the soldiers agree with the Iranians.
Originally posted by: palehorse74
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
The sailors have admitted to being in Iranian waters.
...according to their Iranian captors.
The waters themselves are very disputed territory, so only the Iranians believe that it's their territory.
These soldiers were kidnapped for political purposes.
Originally posted by: libs0n
Ah, came across the article again. Iran asserting its sovereignty or a smuggling inspection gone awry are the most likely explanations, however if this was indeed a premeditated act I believe this article sums up a candidate rational. Iran believes there is currently an ongoing operation to abduct high level members of its armed forces for intel purposes, and has threatened retaliation. This is a different matter than the Iranian consulate members previously arrested by the US in Iraq.
Congratulations, that was my whole point. Everybody has a motive to lie if they were where they we not supposed to be. We may never know the actual truth unless there are satellite images etc, and even those could be doctored.Originally posted by: Pandaren
Originally posted by: palehorse74
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
The sailors have admitted to being in Iranian waters.
...according to their Iranian captors.
The waters themselves are very disputed territory, so only the Iranians believe that it's their territory.
These soldiers were kidnapped for political purposes.
And Moonbeam has admitted to being a Republican frakkup. Must be true because I said it, right? Saying it is so doesn't make it so. I think I'll wait for this whole thing to shake out before making up my mind.
Originally posted by: jpeyton
Iran: U.K. troops admit to illegal entry
TEHRAN, Iran - The Iranian military questioned 15 detained British sailors and marines Saturday and said they had confessed to illegally entering Iranian waters in an act of "blatant aggression."
Britain has demanded the return of the sailors and marines and denied they had strayed into Iranian waters while searching for smugglers off Iraq's coast.
The eight Royal Navy sailors and seven Royal Marines were brought to Tehran for questioning, and a a top military official, Gen. Ali Reza Afshar, said they "confessed to illegal entry into Iran's waters."
"The said personnel are being interrogated and have confessed to aggression into the Islamic Republic of Iran's waters," Afshar was quoted as saying by the state news agency IRNA and the semiofficial ISNA news agency. He did not say what would now be done with the sailors.
The British marines and sailors, who included at least one woman, had just searched a merchant ship when they and their two inflatable boats were intercepted by Iranian vessels Friday at around 10:30 a.m. near the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway, U.S. and British officials said. The Iranian vessels surrounded them and escorted them away at gunpoint.
The seizure of the British sailors came at a time of heightened tensions over Iran's nuclear ambitions and over allegations that Iran is arming Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq. Still, Britain was treating it as a mistake rather than a provocation.
In London, the British government summoned the Iranian ambassador for the second time, demanding the safe return of the sailors and Royal Marines.
Lord Triesman, a Foreign Office under-secretary, spent more than an hour with Rasoul Movahedian, and sought assurances about the group's welfare and consular access, the British government said.
The European Union also called for the "immediate liberation" of the captured sailors.
Iranian hard-liners called for the 15 Britons to be held until Iran wins political concessions from the West.
Several conservative student groups have called on the Iranian government not to release sailors until five Iranians detained by U.S. forces in Iraq earlier this year are freed and U.N. plans for sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program are canceled. Some 500 Iranian students gathered on the shore near where the soldiers were captured, shouting "Death to Britain" and "Death to America," the Fars news agency reported.
The U.N. Security Council was scheduled to vote Saturday on new sanctions against Iran over its refusal of U.N. demands that it suspend uranium enrichment. The U.S. and other nations suspect Iran is trying to produce nuclear weapons. Iran denies that and insists it will not halt the program.
With tensions running high, the United States has bolstered its naval forces in the Persian Gulf in a show of strength directed at Iran. U.S. officials have expressed concern that with so much military hardware in the Gulf, a small incident like Friday's could escalate into a dangerous confrontation.
In his comments on the sailors, Afshar added a warning that the United States would not be able to control the consequences if it attacks Iran.
"The United States and its allies know that if they make any mistake in their calculations ... they will not be able to control the dimensions and limit the duration of a war," Afshar said.
In June 2004, six British marines and two sailors were seized by Iran in the same waterway. They were presented blindfolded on Iranian television and admitted entering Iranian waters illegally, then released unharmed after three days.
Earlier this week, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, warned this week that if Western countries "treat us with threats and enforcement of coercion and violence, undoubtedly they must know that the Iranian nation and authorities will use all their capacities to strike enemies that attack."
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini accused the British of "violating the sovereign boundaries" of Iran, calling the entry a "blatant aggression."
He accused Britain of trying to cover up the incursion, saying it should "refrain from putting the blame on others."
The seizure of the Britons took place in an area where boundaries between Iraqi and Iranian waters have long been disputed. A 1975 treaty set the center of the Shatt al-Arab ? the 125-mile-long channel known in Iran as the Arvand River ? as the border.
But Saddam Hussein canceled the 1975 treaty five years later and invaded Iran, triggering an eight-year war. Virtually all of Iraq's oil is exported through a terminal near the mouth of the channel.
Britain's Defense Ministry said the Royal Navy personnel were in Iraqi territorial waters when they were seized. Cmdr. Kevin Aandahl of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet in Bahrain also said it was "very clear" they were in Iraqi waters.
"We've been on operations there for several years," Aandahl said. He said coalition vessels respect the 1975 treaty.
The sailors, from the frigate HMS Cornwall, are part of a task force that maintains security in Iraqi waters under authority of the U.N. Security Council.
The Cornwall's commander, Commodore Nick Lambert, said he hoped the detention was a "simple mistake" stemming from the unclear border.
But the Iraqi military commander of the country's territorial waters said the British boats may not have been in Iraqi territory.
"We were informed by Iraqi fishermen after they had returned from sea that there were British gunboats in an area that is out of Iraqi control," Brig. Gen. Hakim Jassim told AP Television News in the southern city of Basra.
"We don't know why they were there," he said.
The news agency Fars said navigational equipment on the seized British boats "show that they (sailors) were aware that they were operating in Iranian waters and Iranian border guards fulfilled their responsibility."
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Open and shut case. The British troops were in Iranian waters, and Iran had every right under international law to seize and detain them. The Iranians have as much right to control their seas as we do ours.
Originally posted by: Doboji
Wow... you're an idiot...
Open and shut case? are you that assanine? An Iranian.... STATERUN-news agency says what? The Iranian officials say what? and you just buy it wholesale...
Amazing... You'd buy lead candy if Bush said you shouldn't...
I'm curious to see what you say when the nuke from Iran finally falls... Hopefully both of us will be around to comment.
Naive fool...
-Max
Originally posted by: Jaskalas
Originally posted by: libs0n
Ah, came across the article again. Iran asserting its sovereignty or a smuggling inspection gone awry are the most likely explanations, however if this was indeed a premeditated act I believe this article sums up a candidate rational. Iran believes there is currently an ongoing operation to abduct high level members of its armed forces for intel purposes, and has threatened retaliation. This is a different matter than the Iranian consulate members previously arrested by the US in Iraq.
Your argument is that it is an intentional act of war.
Originally posted by: Martin
Originally posted by: palehorse74
Like I said, according to their Iranian captors.Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Originally posted by: palehorse74
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
The sailors have admitted to being in Iranian waters.
...according to their Iranian captors.
The waters themselves are very disputed territory, so only the Iranians believe that it's their territory.
These soldiers were kidnapped for political purposes.
Apparently the soldiers agree with the Iranians.
If you were being held by the Iranian IRGC, I wonder what you'd agree to...
I hope you're not trying to imply that there might be something wrong with confessions obtained under torture, or with people being held in shadowy military installations for indefinite periods of time...
Originally posted by: tommywishbone
On a positive note; the Captain of the Cornwall said, "...The sailors were inspecting a ship, with a cargo of potentially illegal cars..."
Great, Cal Worthington is going to start WWIII.
