trump-sanction-Iranian-ship-identified-facilitating-terror-strikes
https://freebeacon.com/national-security/trump-sanction-Iranian-ship-identified-facilitating-terror-strikes/Trump to Sanction Iranian Ship Identified in Facilitating
Terror Strikes
https://freebeacon.com/national-security/trump-sanction-Iranian-ship-identified-facilitating-terror-strikes
/trump-sanction-Iranian-ship-identified-facilitating-terror-strikes
/Trump to Sanction Iranian Ship
Identified in Facilitating Terror StrikesSuspicious
Iranian ship, removed from sanctions by Obama admin, seen as aiding Houthi
terror attacks at sea
Rebel-held Red Sea port of Hodeida / Getty
Images
BY: Adam
Kredo
August 14, 2018 1:30 pm
The Trump administration will take action
against an Iranian ship that has been stationed at a key choke point in the Red
Sea for months and is believed to be providing significant military aid to
terrorist forces in Yemen, according to U.S. officials and military experts
familiar with the situation.
An Iranian
ship believed to be masked as a cargo vessel has been identified as the
"mother ship" stationed in the Red Sea providing targeting
information for Houthi anti-ship attacks, which have increased in recent
months, including a late July attack by Iranian-backed rebels on a Saudi oil
tanker.
The ship, identified as the Saviz, was
delisted from U.S. sanctions by the Obama administration as part of its efforts
to uphold the landmark nuclear deal with Iran, U.S. officials confirmed to the
Washington Free Beacon.
Upcoming Trump administration action
against the Saviz and other Iranian vessels is part of a broader package of
sanctions expected to kick back in on Nov. 5, officials confirmed. Sanctions
will target Iran's port operations, shipping and shipbuilding sectors, and
other affiliates.
U.S. officials familiar with the Saviz's
actions in the Red Sea told the Free Beacon the Iranian vessel is barely
attempting to obfuscate its military role in aiding Houthi rebels in Yemen.
"The Iranians aren't even trying to
disguise the military use of the ship," said one U.S. official familiar,
who was not authorized to speak on record about the situation. "You don't
need classified intelligence or satellite photos of the decks to know that
merchant ships simply don't act this way."
"If you're moving goods, you don't
anchor in the same place for weeks at a time, let alone outside a war zone, let
alone a war zone where militias are firing missiles at other ships," the
source said. "The Obama administration enabled the Saviz to sail globally.
President Trump will put a stop to that."
The Iranian ship's suspicious activities
have been cited in recent months by U.S. military experts and foreign
governments, including the Saudi government, which has been targeted by the
Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.
"A ship like Saviz could
carry [Iranian military] Qods Force command and control elements and host
berthing and logistics, while controlling the activities of smaller,
lower-profile craft," according to J.E. Dyer, a retired Naval intelligence
officier who recently published a lengthy analysis on the ship. "The
maritime problem in a chokepoint is short-legged but very multifaceted. It's
time to get the sanctions game face back on, and pay Saviz or her
sister ships a visit with a U.S. cruiser or destroyer."
U.S. defense experts with the Washington
Institute for Near East Policy, or WINEP, also have cited the Saviz as
providing potential support and logistics to Houthi rebels as they commit acts
of terrorism in the region.
WINEP's experts have advocated that the Trump administration "direct more intelligence
gathering against the Iranian ‘mothership' Saviz, a cargo vessel
moored off the Red Sea archipelago of Dahlak."
"The Iranian military is likely using
the Saviz to provide targeting data for Houthi anti-shipping
attacks," according to WINEP. "Closer observation of the vessel and
the threat of exposing its suspected intelligence role might be enough to make
it leave the area. Alternatively, if authorities are able to prove its
complicity in military activities, they may have a case for boarding and seizing
it, which could yield further evidence that Iran is violating UN sanctions and
supporting attacks on civilian vessels."
U.S. military officials with Central
Command, or Centcom, which controls American operations in the region, declined
Free Beacon requests for information on the Saviz and its operations.
The Saudi government has been tracking the Saviz for more than a year
and has documented its extended stay in the Red Sea, activity usual for a
typical cargo ship.
"Saviz appears to have remained
there for extended periods in the months since," Dyer noted in her
analysis. "This is not the typical profile of a large, modern,
ocean-going cargo ship, which would be expensively ill-employed lingering among
islands in the southern Red Sea."
U.S. officials and documentation confirm the Obama administration removed sanctions on
the Saviz in January 2016, enabling its free travel across the region.
Sanctions were lifted as part of U.S.
commitments agreed upon under the nuclear deal, which President Donald Trump
recently abandoned, paving the way for new economic sanctions on Tehran. The
Saviz is just one of numerous
Iran-related vessels that received a pass from U.S. sanctions in 2016.
Sanctions on the Saviz and other Iranian
vessels are set to be reimposed by
Nov. 5, according to information published by the Treasury Department.
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