<\/object><\/p>\nThe Iranian vessel is believed to have been boarded by pirates several weeks ago<\/p>\n
The US Navy has rescued 13 Iranian fishermen being held by pirates in the Arabian Sea, the Pentagon says.<\/p>\n
The 13 were rescued on Thursday after a distress call was received from an Iranian fishing vessel which had been boarded by pirates over a month ago.<\/p>\n
Fifteen suspected pirates were detained and are being held by the US Navy.<\/p>\n
The rescue comes days after Iranian officials warned the US to keep the carrier group involved in the operation out of the Gulf.<\/p>\n
The Iranians had been kept in harsh conditions and are thought to have been forced to assist the pirates in their operations, according to the Pentagon.<\/p>\n
‘Kindness and respect’<\/p>\n
The freed hostages are now on their way back home, the US Navy said.<\/p>\n
The hostages “had been through a lot”, said Navy Criminal Investigative Service agent Josh Schminky.<\/p>\n
“We went out of our way to treat the fishing crew with kindness and respect,” he said.<\/p>\n
The captain of the Al Molai, a fishing dhow, “expressed his sincere gratitude that we came to assist them. He was afraid that without our help, they could have been there for months,” he added.<\/p>\n
The rescue was carried out by forces assigned to the John C Stennis aircraft carrier group, which recently left the Gulf to assist US military operations in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week Iranian officials had warned the carrier not to the return to the region.<\/p>\n
Tensions between Iran and the US have risen recently because of Western concerns over Iran’s nuclear programme.<\/p>\n
Faced with the prospect of fresh sanctions over the programme, Iran threatened to block the transport of oil through the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
It has also recently concluded a 10-day naval exercise near the Strait, test-firing several missiles. \nSources BBC CNN<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Iranian vessel is believed to have been boarded by pirates several weeks ago The US Navy has rescued 13 Iranian fishermen being held by pirates in the Arabian Sea, … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[203,580,581],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1928"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1928\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}