PERSIAN GULF: Hunting for mines

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During the Jan. 6 confrontation between armed Iranian navy speedboats and three U.S. warships moving through the Strait of Hormuz, sailors aboard two of the speedboats appeared to throw something overboard in the path of the ships.

The U.S. believes that the Iranians may have been pretending to throw a mine into the water. Iran has a history of making bellicose statements about its ability to close the strait by the use of mines.

In 1988, the U.S. attacked two Iranian warships and three speedboats after the U.S. guided missile frigate Samuel B. Roberts hit a mine and suffered a 20-foot gash in its hull. The U.S. keeps anti-mine warfare ships permanently based in the Persian Gulf, backed by similar ships from coalition partners.

The U.S. Navy, British Royal Navy, and Kuwaiti forces just completed a 10-day exercise in mine-hunting. Kuwaiti divers were part of the exercise. The British ship the Blyth, one of its top mine-hunters, was assigned to the gulf for the exercise.

Vice Adm. Kevin J. Cosgriff, commander of the U.S. 5th Fleet, based in Bahrain, notes that it is not altogether easy to place a mine. Still, he said that some nations might be tempted to use them as an equalizer against a larger force.

‘Mines are cheap, relatively speaking, and you can buy a lot of them,’ he said.

— Tony Perry in Bahrain