After Iran seizures US, UK hold drone drill in Persian Gulf

In recent months in the Middle East testing the same unmanned surveillance ships that Iran twice has seized, on Friday in the Persian Gulf with the United Kingdom the U.S. Navy held a joint drone drill. 

 

As the U.S. Navy separately told commercial shippers the exercise comes in the wider Mideast, against interfering with their operations it would continue using drones in the region and warned. 

Between the U.S. and Iran on the seas remain high amid stalled negotiations the drone drill and the American pledge to keep sailing them also comes as tensions over its tattered as protests sweep the Islamic Republic and nuclear deal with world powers.

Cmdr said that in the Persian Gulf Friday’s drill involved two American and two British warships, as well as three Saildrone Explorers. A spokesman for the Navy’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet, Timothy Hawkins.

To both the warships and the 5th Fleet’s command center in the island kingdom of Bahrain for a target on the seas the drones searched, then sent the still images its cameras captured back. Through the photos, there, an artificial intelligence system worked. 

Its unmanned Task Force 5 the 5th Fleet launched last year. Including ultra-endurance aerial surveillance drones by the Navy drones used, surface ships like the Sea Hawk and the Sea Hunter and smaller underwater drones that resemble torpedoes.

A commercially available drone that can stay at sea for long periods of time but of particular interest for the Navy has been the Saildrone Explorer. For a region that has some 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) of coastline and from the Suez Canal, down the Red Sea to the Gulf of Oman, the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf that’s crucial.

It’s a vast territory that has seen a series of attacks amid the atomic accord’s collapse and stretches the reach of the Navy and its allies. To global shipping and energy supplies it also remains crucial, through the Strait of Hormuz as a fifth of all oil traded passes.

“You can’t cover all that, No matter what forces you have,”, Hawkins told to the Associated Press. “You have to do that as it is in a partnered way and an innovative way.”

In the region to it patrolling the Gulf of Mexico, with suspicion views the drones but Iran, which long has equated America’s presence. In August and September, Iranian regular and paramilitary forces seized Sail Drones in both the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, alleging without providing evidence that the drones posed a danger to nearby ships.

Iran ultimately released the drones after the U.S. Navy arrived at the site. Cameras on the Sail Drones involved in the Red Sea incident went missing.

On Friday Iranian state-run media did not acknowledge the drill. To a request for comment Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond.

“In accordance with international law and will continue to do so, recent events notwithstanding, and we have been operating these systems safely, responsibly”, Hawkins said. 

In the region beginning Thursday the Navy underscored its plan to keep operating the drones in notices sent to shippers and sailors. To broadcast their location via their Automatic Identification System trackers it said that the drones would continue.

Iranian vessels routinely turn theirs off to mask their movements as Tehran faces international sanctions over its nuclear program and human rights abuses but Ships are supposed to keep their AIS trackers on.

“U.S. Navy (drones) are U.S. government property and will lawfully operate in international waters and through straits in accordance with internationally recognized rights and freedoms”, the Navy said in the notice. “Any interference will be considered a violation of the norms of international maritime law with the U.S. Navy (drones).”