Amphibious Assault Ship, Marines' Unit Join US Navy In Sea Of Oman
A US amphibious assault ship and a Marine Expeditionary Unit have deployed to the Sea of Oman, as joint naval exercises with Israel take place in the Red Sea.
A US amphibious assault ship and a Marine Expeditionary Unit have deployed to the Sea of Oman, as joint naval exercises with Israel take place in the Red Sea.
The US Navy said that the amphibious assault ship “Essex and the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit are deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations in support of naval operations to ensure maritime stability and security in the Central Region, connecting the Mediterranean and the Pacific through the western Indian Ocean and three strategic choke points.”
In another development, forces from the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Israel and the United States Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT) began a multilateral maritime security operations exercise in the Red Sea on Wednesday, NAVCENT said on Thursday.
This is the first publicly acknowledged naval exercise between the United States, Israel and the two Gulf Arab countries.
The new naval and Marines’ forces joining CENTCOM’s theater of operations conducted bilateral interoperability training with the Royal Navy’s aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth with landing helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft on US F-35 fighters and British aircraft cross-landing on each other’s platforms.
The move coincided with Iranian exercises along the Sea of Oman that began on November 7 and included land, air and naval unites. The army said its drills covered an area of one million sq kilometers or 386,000 sq miles, well over half the territory of Iran. Navy vessels and submarines, as well as old American Phantom fighter-bombers and drones took part.
Tensions are high in the region as Iran tries to flex its muscles following Israeli warnings that it will take action if Tehran gets any closer to nuclear capability. An Israeli official told Iran International on October 25 that attacking Iran was now the Israeli air force’s top priority.
The United States has also warned that “other option” could be considered if Iran does not seriously negotiate over its nuclear program.
Iran’s new hardliner government left multilateral talks over reviving the 2015 nuclear agreement in June, delaying resumption of negotiations for five months. New talks are finally scheduled to resume at the end of November, but Iran has been hardening its posture.
Iran also claimed last week that it had a confrontation with the US Navy and prevented the seizure of Iranian oil in the Sea of Oman. The US denied any confrontation and said Iran seized a Vietnam-flagged tanker in October and the Navy was simply observing the incident. Iran finally released the tanker on Tuesday.
Commodore Steve Moorhouse, commander of the United Kingdom’s Carrier Strike Group, was quoted as sayingabout joint drills, “The force development work we have been undertaking with the U.S. Navy has been ground breaking. We are all comfortable with helicopters lilly-padding from one deck to another but doing it with fixed wing aircraft is a whole new game. This level of interoperability goes far beyond anything we have exercised before with any partner and offers a degree of flexibility and agility that Commanders have long dreamt of.”
The US 5th Fleet area of operations covers about 2.5 million square miles of water area and includes the Arabian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, Red Sea and parts of the Indian Ocean. The area encompasses 20 countries and includes three chokepoints, including the Strait of Hormuz, critical to the free flow of global commerce.
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The Iran Atrocities Tribunal convened in London Wednesday with testimonies from family members who sent recorded messages or testified via video on the alleged killing of their relative in protests in November 2019.
Regina Paulose, a member of the tribunal's counsel and an attorney who focuses on genocide and crimes against humanity, told Iran International that there was no “question of impunity” for Iran’s leaders. "The people's tribunal makes it known that… the leaders have to be accountable," she said.
While ‘atrocity’ is not a legal term, the tribunal follows the model of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, which was held 2009 to 2014 to review alleged Israeli war crimes against Palestinians following the notion of ‘people’s tribunals’ advocated by British philosopher Bertrand Russell.
"When a similar tribunal was held for Palestine, [Iran's] Press TV was probably the only media outlet in the world that broadcast it live," journalist Mehdi Mahdavi-Azad said. "When such tribunals are concerning itself, they boycott them and make no mention at all.”
Mahboubeh Ramezanifard, mother of Pejman Gholipour, told the tribunal in a recorded message that she had kept her son’s “bloody clothes to show the world as evidence that my child was murdered.” Ramezanifard said her son’s jacket had “holes on both sides because he was shot with a live bullet."
In the afternoon session, United States-based opposition activist Masih Alinejad testified from her “own findings” that the Iranian authorities had made the families of those killed in the protests bury the corpses in remote places. Alinejad said this was “psychological torture.”
Alinejad also said “authorities” had threatened families not to talk to foreign media and has asked two for the cost of the bullet used to kill them. "The families believe there is no justice in Iran,” she said. “You can take your complaint against murderers to the murderers themselves.”
"We want this tribunal to hear the truth from witnesses," Shadi Sadr, a director of Justice for Iran, one of the tribunal organizers, told Iran International Wednesday.
Speaking via video to the tribunal, Nahid Shirbisheh said her son Pouya had been shot in the head while protesting peacefully alongside his mother in Karaj. She said hers was the first family to openly tell the world about “the atrocities of the Islamic Republic.”
"We didn't fear the consequences,” she said. “As a result, we have constantly been threatened and detained. Pouya's father is still in prison, in solitary confinement for seeking justice.”
The tribunal will in the next few days also hear the testimony of three Iranian police officers, a judicial official, and two doctors who tended to the wounded at their offices or homes to avoid arrest. These witnesses have travelled to London secretly.