US operating five submarines in Persian Gulf (Iranian Press TV report)

The number of US submarines deployed to the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman has reached five with the dispatch of the USS Springfield (SSN-761) to the region. 

 

The USS Columbia (SSN-771) is operating west of the Strait of Hormuz, which is a key oil transit route. The US has also stationed eight minesweeping ships in international waters of the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman.

The United Kingdom has also deployed HMS Trenchant, a Trafalgar-class nuclear-powered submarine, to the Sea of Oman.

Financial woes in the United States have forced Washington to reduce its military presence in the Persian Gulf.

The news comes after the US administration was forced to sign into effect the spending cuts known as the sequester last Friday, which will take USD85 billion from the US federal budget in 2013.

About half of the cuts, or USD46 billion, will affect the US military sector, the most sensitive of which will be altering plans for the deployment of Pentagon’s naval assets.

While the Pentagon had been previously considering plans to assign two of its 10 aircraft carriers to the Persian Gulf, the giant budgetary cuts have now forced the Department of Defense to deploy only one of those aircraft carriers to the region.

UK and US in talks for use of bases

Britain’s announces that it is ‘in touch’ with the US over military contingency planning on the potential flashpoints in the Middle East, but insists it doesn’t support any imminent strike on Iran

 

The British Royal Navy’s Astute Class attack submarine, HMS Ambush, is seen in this photo. The UK has at least one nuclear submarine in the Hormuz Strait. 

Britain’s government has said it is involved in military contingency planning with the United States on potential flashpoints in the Middle East, but insisted it does not support any imminent strike on Iran’s nuclear sites.

Prime Minister David Cameron’s office confirmed Oct. 26 that planning is being carried out with the U.S. and other allies, including on the potential use of British bases overseas by U.S. forces.

The confirmation followed a report by The Guardian that the U.S. had asked Britain to use its bases in Greekk Cyprus, and British territory in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean, to build up forces in the Gulf.

Cameron’s office said discussions were taking place, but declined to specify the details. According to The Guardian, the British government has rejected Washington’s request to use military bases in Greek Cyprus, Ascension Island in the Atlantic and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, citing advice from British government lawyers that such an attack would violate international law.

Clear breach of int’l law

The U.S.’ approach is part of contingency planning over the nuclear standoff with Tehran, but British ministers rebuffed the request. They have pointed U.S. officials to legal advice drafted by the attorney general’s office which has been circulated to Downing Street, the Foreign Office and the Defense Ministry.

The West and its allies fear the nuclear enrichment process of Tehran could lead to nuclear weapons development, a charge Iran denies, saying its nuclear ambitions are only for peaceful purposes.
The advice stated that providing assistance to forces that could be involved in a preemptive strike would be a clear breach of international law. “The U.K. would be in breach of international law if it facilitated what amounted to a preemptive strike on Iran,” said a senior British official. “It is explicit.
The government has been using this to push back against the Americans.”

According to the report, Washington has not made a formal request to the British government and that they did not believe acceleration toward conflict was imminent. “But I think the U.S. has been surprised that ministers have been reluctant to provide assurances about this kind of upfront assistance,” said one source.

The British navy has up to 10 ships in the region, including a nuclear-powered submarine and counter-mine vessels which are on permanent duty in Hormuz.

Britain has assumed that it would only become involved once a conflict had already begun and has been reluctant to commit overt support to Washington in the buildup to any military action.

Iran’s Naval Mines: The IED of the Seas

Earlier this year Iran threatened to shut down shipping in the enormously important Strait of Hormuz. Now the U.S. and other nations are worried about something else: that Iran could mine the body of water with improvised devices.

Any ship can be a minesweeper—once. So goes the gallows humor referring to the threat that naval mines pose to ships.

But that sardonic phrase underlies a more pressing reality: In recent months, the United States and other countries have grown increasingly concerned about Iran’s ability to mine the Strait of Hormuz, essentially cutting off a critical international waterway. Iran’s leadership has already threatened to shut down the international shipping route, while also crowing about its growing fleet of mini submarines that are difficult to detect and can be used to lay mines.

The problem with mines at sea, as with roadside bombs on land, is that they can be fairly easy to build but difficult to detect and clear. "You take an existing bomb and fit it with target detection, and voila! your bomb is now a mine," says Scott Truver, a naval consultant who has written extensively on mine warfare.

Like their land-based counterparts, even crude mines can be costly and deadly. Mine warfare experts like to cite the case of the USS Samuel B. Roberts, a frigate that struck an Iranian-laid mine in 1988. The warship didn’t sink, but the mine, based on a Russian model from 1908, caused nearly $100 million in damage.

In fact, some naval officials are already talking about mines as the next improvised explosive device threat. "We’ve been there before, we just called it an IED," Rear Adm. Frank Morneau, deputy director for Expeditionary Warfare Division, told an audience at a naval conference earlier this year.

The Navy maintains a "triad" of capabilities to battle mines, which includes ships, aircraft, and divers. It also employs dolphins, whose echolation—the biological equivalent of sonar—is still one the most effective ways for finding and clearing certain mines. Like bomb dogs on land, the dolphins are actually sent to locate the mines (the marine mammals can also place a charge on the mines to destroy it). The push now, though, is to develop unmanned systems—drones in the sea—that can hunt down and neutralize the mines while keeping humans away from the threat.

The Navy recently unveiled a model of Knifefish, an unmanned submarine that would be used to hunt mines, but it won’t be ready for use until at least 2015. The Navy has reportedly purchased dozens of SeaFox drones to target Iran’s underwater mines. In another effort, AAI, a business unit of Textron, is hoping to sell the U.S. Navy its own unmanned surface ship that uses a command and control system based on the Shadow unmanned aerial vehicle, which has been used extensively by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan. The company says it’s already demonstrated mine detection capabilities and is hoping to win U.S. navy business.

But for any immediate threat, the Navy will have to rely on its existing technology to clear mines, and that’s probably why it’s hoping that politics—rather than technology—will ultimately stave off the mine threat. Truver says that Iran mining the Strait of Hormuz would be regarded as act of war and would likely cause immediate retaliation. "They would not put many weapons in the water," he says—maybe a handful before the United States and other countries would likely intervene.

Perhaps to emphasize that point the U.S. Navy last month took part in a military exercise in the Persian Gulf that involved over 30 other nations’ naval forces. Though officially the mine clearing exercise was not aimed at Iran, it was intended to send a strong signal to the country’s leadership.

Retired Navy Capt. Robert O’Donnell, who was involved for many years in mine warfare, says that the exercise clearly sent a signal to Iran that the international community was ready to act together but added that he still hopes the next exercise will focus more on the actual clearing of mines. "The emphasis [this time] was not on hunting or clearing mines," says O’Donnell, who attended the exercise. "The emphasis was on resolve and communication."

Israeli cyber attacks targeted offshore oil, gas platforms – Iran IT head

Iran’s offshore oil and gas platforms were the targets of the cyber attacks aimed at crippling the country. All threats were repelled and Israel was behind them, according to head of IT at the Iranian Offshore Oil Company, Mohammad Reza Golshani.

Golshani told Reuters that the attack happened over the past couple of weeks, was routed through China, and affected only the communications systems of the network.

It is almost two weeks since the managing director of the National Iranian Offshore Oil Company Mahmoud Zirakchianzadeh announced his company’s negotiations over deals worth US$14 billion.

Iran is currently under pressure from the international sanctions, mainly in oil exports, imposed by the UN Security council, the US, and the EU.

On Saturday, the EU threatened to ban Iran’s natural gas export to put pressure on the country’s nuclear program. Iran’s now exporting to Turkey and has swap deals with Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The possible ban was described by a spokesman of the oil ministry Alireza Nikzad-Rahbar as a "propaganda campaign" because “right now no EU member imports Iranian gas supply.”

The UN Security Council imposed four rounds of sanctions in efforts to pressure Tehran to give up its nuclear program, which the West fears is aimed at creating a nuclear weapon. Iran insists its nuclear ambitions are peaceful. The sanctions targeted Iran’s oil exports and cut off access to international banking networks.

Tehran is being pressured not only with sanctions: the country has been variously attacked by Flame, Stuxnet and Gauss, three viruses that gathered information on sensitive Iranian equipment and slowed down its nuclear centrifuges. They were tacitly confirmed to have been launched by the US and Israel, as a way of slowing down the country’s atomic program, which the West says is aimed at eventually producing nuclear weapons. A claim Iran emphatically denies.

Iran has reported several computer attacks in recent months and a Revolutionary Guard commander said last month the country would defend itself in case of a "cyber war".

Tehran is seeking to developing a national Internet system, which it says would improve cyber security. But many Iranians say the plan is the latest way to control their access to the Web, which is already highly censored.

Hired Guns Tame The Somali Coast

At the moment there's a booming market in security guards for merchant ships plying the waters off Somalia and adjacent areas (Gulf of Aden, Red Sea, western Indian Ocean, Straits of Hormuz). While many ships get by on-the-cheap by forming convoys that are guarded by warships of the international anti-piracy patrol, others have schedules that preclude waiting for a convoy to form. Most of these ships are now using a detachment of 4-5 armed guards, which cost them about $40,000 for the short trip through pirate invested waters.

It's not just the armed former soldiers and marines now riding on the most choice targets that scare off the pirates, but also all the dozens of boats (the size of seagoing fishing boats) that ferry the armed guards between African and Arabian ports to the ships to be guarded. The pirates have learned to keep clear of these boats as well, as they are full of heavily armed men willing to undertake some target practice before reaching their merchant ship and going on duty.

The rapid growth in the use of armed guard (who were on ten percent of large ships a year ago, and some 70 percent now) and more aggressive operations by the international anti-pirate patrol have caused ship captures by pirates to decline by two-thirds this year. The reduction in ransom money has led to a collapse of the economic boom in and around the northern Somalia port towns where the pirates were based. There are now a lot of unemployed pirates and those still at sea have to proceed much more cautiously.

Israel sees ‘Persian Spring’ for Tehran

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has said he believes “the Arab Spring will be followed by a Persian Spring,” with international sanctions against Iran leading to renewed domestic unrest.

“The Arab Spring will be followed by a Persian Spring, instability is spreading in Iran, and not just in Tehran,” Lieberman told Israeli military radio yesterday. “There is no doubt that the protest movement will be strengthened by the approach of the Iranian presidential elections next summer,” he added.

His remarks came a day after scuffles broke out in central Tehran in the first sign of unrest over Iran’s plunging currency, which has lost more than half its value since last week as European and U.S. sanctions have bitten. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s rivals claim that economic mismanagement is the main cause of the currency crisis. He blames Western sanctions but insists Iran will make no concessions on its nuclear program.

“The Iranian regime is reaching a critical point. International sanctions will not convince the leaders of the country to renounce their nuclear program, but what is important is that the Iranian people have begun to realize that they are not ready to be sacrificed to satisfy the revolutionary and fanatic ambitions of their leaders,” he said.

Lieberman called on Western governments to act to help opposition activists who rose up against the regime when Ahmadinejad was re-elected in 2009 and the most prominent of whom remain under house arrest.

“This time, the West must help the movement, facilitating its communications, giving money and mobilizing international organizations like the UN Security Council, the European Union and other bodies,” he said.

The US Navy And Allies Just Showed Iran Who Really Controls The Strait Of Hormuz - Robert Johnson

The US Navy and allies just completed a 12-day mine clearing exercise in the Strait of Hormuz. While the military avoided mentioning the standoff with Iran, the message was clear.

The allied nations were here and would do anything it takes to keep this critical 21-mile channel open.

It was August when I put up a post saying I wanted to attend this week's Persian Gulf mine clearing exercise.

After reporting Iran's incessant threats to mine the Strait of Hormuz and choke the global oil supply, I wanted some reality.

I thought the words out of Iran would have a different meaning 50 miles offshore of the Islamic Republic, and would carry greater weight to the troops sailing through the Strait on a regular basis.

I expected answers. Some concrete, hang-your-hat-on opinions and experience from U.S. Naval troops that would give face to the threat.

To that end, I was disappointed. I mean, I should have known better. Known that the lower ranks are so busy performing the mission that they have little time to consider anything else. And the upper ranks aren't going to express anything outside policy: "The Iranian Navy has been nothing but professional and courteous," was the inescapable line last week.

When I asked why the enlisted troops I spoke to had little awareness of what was happening in the Gulf, one Navy Lieutenant Commander told me, "We need them to be occupied every second of every day." He was referring to keeping sailors from dwelling on home and family and preserving morale, but the effect applies to current events, as well.

Most sailors had little idea of Iran's bluster. And the few I talked to who were aware, just shrugged and laughed. "Doesn't matter much," they said. "The mission is the mission." In the end, it's still hot and they still get paid.

Fear is something that may flicker through the cockpit of an F/A-18 desperate to find its mark on a carrier deck at night, or appear full blown for an instant during one of the disfiguring accidents that plague carrier flight crew, but it rarely settles in for the night.

Still this fails to explain how complex marine mines are, and how daunting the task of neutralizing them really is. With about a dozen variations, knowing a mine is laid remains only a fraction of the fight. Magnetic, resonant, triggered … there are mines for every occasion.

Several admirals we spoke with pointed out how it costs as little as $1,000 to $1,500 to create a marine mine that could cause billions of dollars in damage. It's an almost romantic idea; biblical in its David-like ambition, but perhaps unlikely.

What officials refer to when they mention this figure and contraption is an animal bladder filled with fuel, placed near the surface of the sea. While not only being easy to identify but difficult to control and ignite, surface mines lack a formidable favor of physics.

The deeper a mine, the greater the pressure imposed upon it by the water above, which results in a more powerful explosion when it detonates.

Just one of many slippery perceptions out here in the Gulf about a device that invites no easy answers.

If Iran does manage to dump a string of mines into the Strait without the U.S. stopping them, it will take a long, long time to conclude an acceptable risk of passage.

And as one Navy LT,—an oceanographer—told me, that is what it will come down to: acceptable risk. I pressed him, "So what? Eighty percent, 70, 65 percent secure? What's the number that sends commercial traffic back through the strait? Is it even a number?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "But, yes, it is a number."

Acceptable risk. If you're crewing a vessel through the Strait, you may want to check your company's insurance policy.

As simple as it sounds, the only way to know all the mines are gone is to see that nothing explodes. If one gets missed, chances are someone will find it, but that won't keep the strait from serving global vessels and ensuring tankers make their way to the marketplace.

But as picturesque as the strait may seem, it could just as easily become ground zero for the planet's next big global conflict.