US Navy Ship Fires On Approaching Boat Which Refused Warnings To Stay Away; One Dead

They do this, of course. Pirates and jihadists. They fill their boats with explosives and try to get close to a big Navy ship, trusting that the Rules of Engagement are forbidding enough that they won't be fired upon.

Well, the RoE wasn't steep enough for them.

I'm assuming the part about the explosives. Either they had explosives, or this was a probing mission, or the boat was sent out as a sacrifice, so that Iran can whip up anger about the shooting, and then maybe the RoE will be modified so the next ship -- which will have explosives -- will get through.

The ship, though, was no Iranian.

A spokesperson for the Navy's 5th Fleet, which is based in nearby Bahrain, said that a security team aboard the oil supply ship U.S.N.S. Rappahannock fired a .50 caliber machine gun at a "small motor vessel after it disregarded warnings and rapidly approached the U.S. ship" off the coast of Jebel Ali, a city approximately 30 miles from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

The Navy is investigating the incident as details continue to emerge. A Navy official said the offending vessel was a white pleasure craft, but a UAE official told ABC News it was a fishing boat with four Indians and two Emirates on board. There doesn't appear to be any indication the incident was terror-related, the UAE official said.

The Navy official said it's not uncommon for Iranian speed craft to harass U.S. ships in the region, but in this case the boat wasn't Iranian.

US Navy Ship Fires On Approaching Boat Which Refused Warnings To Stay Away; One Dead&bodytext=They do this, of course. Pirates and jihadists. They fill their boats with explosives and try to get close to a big Navy ship, trusting that the Rules of Engagement are forbidding enough that they won't be fired upon. Well,...&topic=world_news"> posted by Ace at 01:50 PM

| Access Comments