Al Arabiya News, Reuters
Tuesday, 28 April 2015

Iran has opened fire at a U.S. cargo ship and directed it to Bandar Abbas port on the southern coast of Iran, Al Arabiya News Channel has reported on Tuesday, citing Iranian news agencies.

Both state-owned FARS and IRNA news agencies, said the cargo ship was American, however a Pentagon spokesman confirmed to Reuters that the ship, the MV Maersk Tigirs, was a Marshal Island-flagged vessel and that Iranian forces had indeed boarded it.
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News...-sailors-.html

Details are still coming in, but it seems clear that the Iranian Navy seized a container ship called the Maersk Tigris that was transiting the Strait of Hormuz this morning. The ship, flagged in the Marshall Islands and owned by a Danish conglomerate, was traveling on an internationally recognized shipping route when it was approached by Iranian vessels that ordered it to “proceed further” into Iranian waters. The captain refused, and the Iranian vessels fired warning shots. The captain then “complied with the Iranian demand and proceeded into Iranian waters in the vicinity of Larak Island,” according to a Pentagon spokesman. The Iranians have boarded the ship.

As the news of this act of piracy started to circulate, and after some confusion about whether or not the ship was U.S. flagged (it’s not), there was some discussion on social media about whether or not the United States is obligated to defend the interests of the Marshall Islands (it is) and whether or not there were any American citizens aboard (there don’t appear to be). Some of this was understandable fact finding, but some of it also seemed motivated by a desire to downplay the significance of the incident, and to diminish the expectation that the United States needs to respond, even as the Navy has already ordered a destroyer to monitor the situation.
http://freebeacon.com/blog/irans-hij...ge-to-the-usa/

Maersk Line, the Danish shipper that chartered a Marshall Islands-flagged cargo vessel which Iranian forces have captured, said the reason for stopping the ship could be related to a 2005 cargo case.

Maersk Line spokesman Michael Storgaard said the company learned Thursday that an Iranian appeals court had ruled Maersk must pay $3.6 million for a 10-container cargo delivered a decade ago on behalf of an Iranian company in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. However, the cargo never was collected, according to Storgaard, adding it eventually was disposed of by local authorities.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/04...-to-2005-case/

Iran's Revolutionary Guards 'harassed' a US-flagged commercial ship just days before it seized a vessel carrying cargo and 34 sailors, it has emerged.

The two incidents have raised concerns about the security of shipping lanes in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steven Warren said.

News of the first incident was revealed by the Pentagon after Iranian guards seized MV Maersk Tigris this week, by firing warning shots across the vessel's bows.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz3YoDcKYAN