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Amid Tense Encounters, U.S. Navy Ship Fires Warning Shots at Iranian Ships
(Washington Post) Missy Ryan and Thomas Gibbons-Neff - After Iranian ships made provocative maneuvers around a U.S. destroyer in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, on Wednesday Iranian vessels came within several hundred meters of other American ships in the Persian Gulf. Three Revolutionary Guard Corps ships approached the coastal patrol ships USS Squall and USS Tempest at high speed in the northern Persian Gulf, said William Urban, a spokesman for the U.S. 5th Fleet. Later in the day, an Iranian vessel came within 200 yards of the Tempest. After the Tempest shot flares and tried to communicate using the ship's loudspeaker, Squall personnel fired three shots into the water from that ship's .50-caliber gun. The Iranian ship then departed. That same Iranian ship later approached the USS Stout, a guided-missile destroyer, later Wednesday. "The [IRGC] vessel proceeded to cross the bow of the Stout at close range on three separate occasions," Urban said.