Iranian Friendly Fire Incident Results in Death of 19 Sailors
Richard Moorhead
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Iranian state media confirmed that a friendly fire incident during a naval exercise in the Persian Gulf resulted in the deaths of 19 of the country’s sailors on Sunday.
Iranian state TV reported that an anti-ship missile fired from the frigate Jamaran hit the light support ship Konarak. The latter had been setting up a practice target, and the frigate fired its missile before the Konarak cleared the field of fire. At least nineteen sailors have been killed and fifteen were reported wounded.
“The vessel was hit after moving a practice target to its destination and not creating enough distance between itself and the target.”
Iran is fiercely protective of its interests in the Persian Gulf and often deploys naval forces in the Strait of Hormuz as a thumb in the eye of Saudi Arabia. 21% of oil used for global consumption travels through the strait, and blocking it off would prove to be devastating to the Shia Islamic Republic’s Sunni rival.
This isn’t the first time that the Iranian military has killed its own citizens through questionable friendly fire incidents. The country’s air defense forces shot down a civilian airliner over Tehran during a moment of tension with the United States in January, downing Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752. The nation’s state media tried to cover up the airliner catastrophe, and the reports of the deaths at sea from Iranian state TV may suggest the nation’s Islamist government wants to avoid being busted doing as such again.
Tragically enough for the Iranian people, the nation’s Islamist dictatorship seems adept enough at killing its own people without western involvement.
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