Iran Slams US Deployment of Unmanned Vessels in Gulf

The presence of a large number of foreign unmanned vessels endangers energy security in the Gulf region, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Saturday. Amir-Abdollahian spoke at a joint press conference in Tehran with his Omani counterpart, Sayyid Badr Hamad al-Busaidi. The Omani foreign minister said, “We have always tried to provide security for shipping and commercial traffic because it is in the interest of the nations of the region,” Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

This follows an announcement by the US Central Command on Saturday that it would deploy over 100 unmanned vessels in the Gulf by next year due to maritime threats. Gen. Michael Kurilla, CENTCOM’s commander, spoke at the annual Manama Dialogue conference in Bahrain. The US and Israel blamed Iran for a drone strike earlier in the week on an Israeli-owned, Liberian-flagged tanker, the Pacific Zircon, off the coast of Oman. “By this time next year, Task Force 59 will bring together a fleet of over 100 unmanned surface and subsurface vessels operating together, communicating together, and providing maritime domain awareness,” the CENTCOM chief said.