generalspeaking

Countering Iran in the Strait of Hormuz

"Heightened military activity and increased political tensions in this region continue to pose serious threats to commercial vessels. Associated with these threats is a potential for miscalculation or misidentification that could lead to aggressive actions."
"In at least two of these incidents, vessels reported GPS interference. One vessel reportedly shut off its Automatic Identification System (AIS) before it was seized, complicating response efforts. Vessels have also reported spoofed bridge-to-bridge communications from unknown entities falsely claiming to be U.S. or coalition warships."
U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD)

The Islamic Republic of Iran brooks no interference in its aspirations to become a regional power, nor its intentions to become a nuclear power. At the same time that Sunni majority regional nations have formed a unified front against Iran's Shiite clique with Saudi Arabia defensive over its accepted role as the commanding senior Middle East nation whose stewardship of Mecca and Medina give it both regional and universal authority, Iran has continued its recruitment of allies in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Qatar, while supporting Houthi rebels in Yemen where a proxy war is playing out.

With the Trump administration pulling out of the feeble nuclear agreement with the Republic of Iran, still supported by the EU, and additional sanctions applied to an Iran that the world recognizes for its support of terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas along with its ongoing provocations in missile development and threats to the existence of Israel, Iran's economy has suffered and continues to plummet. An always-irascible Ayatollah-ridden authority has long threatened to disrupt shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

With the authority given to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to launch piracy on the high seas tensions continue to build in the water between the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf, which hosts the world's greatest oil shipments with over 15 million barrels of oil passing through the Strait daily heading to all corners of the globe. Iran has seized three tankers in several weeks as they sailed through the Strait, claiming they were in its territorial waters and illegally shipping oil.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard has released footage showing some of its forces boarding the British tanker Stena Impero in the Strait of Hormuz. Photo: Iranian Revolutionary Guard

A British tanker among them, in retaliation for an Iranian tanker that was stopped and taken into custody in Gibraltar on British authority carrying contraband oil to Syria, in direct violation of international sanctions placed on the murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad. It's clear enough that the IRGC is conducting acts of intimidation and piracy, another kind of terrorism, which the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claims to be perfectly justified since they're stopping illegal activity.

This is Iran's way of messaging the world that it has options of its own to pursue in retaliation for the sanctions that have been strait-jacketing its economy, causing unrest among the population resulting from the straitening situation of enforced austerity and general insecurity, under perceived threat by the United States. Global markets, meanwhile are reeling in uncertainty over their shipping routes. Vulnerable to strange tanker blasts, or to the potential of being hijacked.

Now reports have emerged from the U.S. Maritime Administration that two incidents have occurred with commercial vessels where ships reported interference with their Global Positioning System along with communications falsely claiming by unknown entities to be from U.S. or other warships, warning the ships not to respond with violence should someone attempt to board them. The contention is that Iran is making use of GPS jammers to target aircraft and ships emanating from an island close to where the Strait of Hormuz begins.

As tensions between the U.S. and Iran rise, a series of incidents has put a strategic maritime waterway back into the spotlight: The Strait of Hormuz.  Photo: Getty Images

According to the MARAD source, this is an effort to guide these ships by implication to stray into Iranian territorial waters or airspace. At which point they are fair game to be detained by the IRGC.
In the spirit that all is fair in the war of sanctions and guerrilla tactics, Iran-style. What gives Iran breathing room is its association with China, an important client and supporter, as a member of the UN Security Council, and buyer of Iranian oil.

Labels: Iran, Piracy, Strait of Hormuz, Threats, United States

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, August 10, 2019

Venezuela Imploding and Reverberations in the Caribbean

"We be lookin' for our red fish as normal, think' they be fishin', too. They be needin' help?"
"Then we knowin'. They be pirates."
"The man talkin' Spanish, he point the gun at me, then he point at the water. I be knowin'. He be wantin' that I jump."
"I had already reached the rig, so I had to be jumpin' back in, to help him [another crewman suffering a cramp]."
"He was goin' to be drownin'."
Jimmy Lalla, 36, Asheena fishing boat crewman, Trinidadian waters 

"They said they would take the boat and that everyone should jump overboard. I tried to keep my head above water so I could get air."
"I drank a lot of salt water. I looked to the stars and moon. I just hoped and prayed."
Deonarine Goberdhan, 47, Guyanese fishing boat

"This reminds me of how the problems started off the coast of eastern Africa [with Somali pirates]."
"What we're seeing -- the piracy, the smuggling -- it's the result of Venezuela's political and economic collapse."
Roodal Moonilal, lawmaker, United National Congress, Trinidad

Muggings on the high seas, threats, murder, looting, boats captured, crews told to swim or sink. Four Guyanese fishing boats 40 kilometres off the coast of Guyana were exposed to the new dangers lurking in the waters they all ply to make their living as fishermen. The survivors of the crews of those four boats describe being doused with hot oil, of being hacked with machetes, thrown overboard, their boats stolen. Most of the crew members died, or have been declared missing. Twenty managed to live to tell about their ordeal.

Close to Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti and St. Lucia, piracy on the high seas has been reported over the past year and a half. The surge in piracy has its epicentre off the coast of Venezuela where that nation's economic crisis has seen inflation soaring close to a million percent, with food and medicine hard to come by and malnutrition spreading. Water and power grids experiencing a lack of trained staff and spare parts, and failing to operate as needed public utilities.

Venezuelan police and its military abandoning posts in response to worthless paycheques. The socialist revolutionary government of President Nicolas Maduro, inheriting the throne from Hugo Chavez, corrupt beyond measure, using extraordinary repression to keep the masses in check. People are dying from lack of food and medical attention. Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have migrated in a desperate search for haven in neighbouring countries, hoping for rescue from their desperate existential plight.

Desperate times makes for desperate alternatives and harden the human conscience. Venezuelan vessels themselves are being raided; knives and guns brandished to emphasize the determination of the raiders to complete their mission, tying up crew, stealing food and electronics. According to the Commercial Crime Services division of the International Chamber of Commerce based in London, such incidents have become commonplace, emanating from Venezuelan desperation. The situation deteriorating rapidly has seen crime proliferate with drug smugglers shipping Colombian cocaine from Venezuelan ports to Trinidad and other Caribbean countries.

Trinidadian fishermen fear for their safety, in witness of Venezuelan boats smuggling military-issue guns along with drugs, exotic animals and women. The flow of automatic weapons out of Venezuela, some appearing to be looted from military stores, is contributing to homicide rates proliferating in Trinidad. When the hijacking of the boat that Jimmy Lalla was on was reported to Trinidadian officials they responded that "We have no boat to go after them; we can do nothing."

Labels: Breakdown, Caribbean, Desperation, Piracy, Terrorism, Venezuela

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, August 29, 2018