Ship Hired By US Fires Warning Shots In Gulf

A cargo vessel under contract with the US Navy fired warning shots on two small boats which approached the ship in the Gulf and failed to respond to radio communications, the US Navy said. The small speed boats left the area after the warning shots and the US ship Westward Venture received radio contract from a unit of the Iranian Coast Guard, the Navy's Fifth Fleet in Bahrain said.Westward VentureThe Navy could not confirm that the boats during the incident were Iranian. US Navy ships in the Gulf have in the past had encounters with small Iranian boats. One of the bigger incidents between the two countries took place in January, when three Iranian fast boats came dangerously close to three US warships in international waters in the Strait of Hormuz before vanishing as one of the US vessels was preparing to open fire.