From yesterday's Daily Mail
The U.S. Navy has rescued 13 Iranian seaman being held captive by pirates in the Gulf of Oman. In a move that should relieve tensions between the nations – temporarily at least – the Americans successfully responded to a distress call from a merchant ship.
A Navy helicopter from the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis tracked the Somalian pirates to an Iranian-flagged dhow that had earlier been hijacked. There, the team found 15 armed pirates who did not put up a fight holding the 13 Iranians hostage. Reports differ as to how long the crew had been held. The Somalians were taken into custody and the merchant seamen set free. The rescue occurred about 175 miles south-east of Muscat, Oman.
The news will have been well received in Tehran and the whole world will be hoping the rescue will enable the countries to step back from a march towards conflict that has recently appeared inevitable...
Ah bless, you might think, fellowship of the sea and all that. We wouldn't exactly expect that Iranian government to say thanks or anything, but this is sourpuss, even by their standards...
Iran accused the U.S. of a media stunt after the American Navy's rescue of 13 Iranian fishermen held by pirates, saying it was staged like a 'Hollywood drama'. American officials announced that the fishermen had been rescued by a Navy destroyer, more than 40 days after their boat was commandeered by suspected Somali pirates in the northern Arabian Sea. The rescue came just days after Tehran warned the U.S. to keep the same group of warships out of the Persian Gulf in a reflection of Iran's fear that America could try to enforce an embargo against Iranian oil exports.
Iran's hard-line Fars news agency called the rescue operation a Hollywood dramatisation of a routine event. The Fars report noted that attacks by Somali pirates in the region were common and Iran's navy has itself freed many mariners held by pirates in recent years without seeking to highly publicise it.
