State TV says Iranian speedboats intercepted US Navy vessel

Iran’s state TV reports that speedboats belonging to the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard have intercepted a US vessel in the Persian Gulf. A US Navy spokesman says he is not aware of any such encounter at sea over the past days.

The Iranian TV report today aired footage that it said was filmed from one of the Guard speedboats. It shows a vessel with the US flag and several personnel on board as the speedboat appears to be chasing it.

A voice is heard in Farsi, saying: “Keep chasing them.” The report does not say when the encounter took place.

Cmdr. Timothy Hawkins, a spokesman for the US Navy’s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, says he wasn’t aware of any sort of unsafe interaction with Iran in the last two days. The report is the first such report in recent months.