nivek
As Above So Below
Could it have been missiles or drones attacking this vessel?...
Japanese Ship Owner Disputes U.S. Claims About Weapons Used In Tanker Attack
The shipping company says "flying objects" were to blame after the U.S. government releases imagery it says show a limpet mine on the ship.
The president of the shipping company that owns the Kokuka Courageous has said that "a flying object" caused the damage the ship suffered in an attack in the Gulf of Oman yesterday, directly disputing a U.S. government assessment. The U.S. military has released video and pictures that it says point to an Iranian attack using limpet mines. These competing narratives add to a flurry of confusing and contradictory claims that have been swirling around the incident since it occurred.
Yutaka Katada, president of shipping firm Kokuka Sangyo, offered his take, citing accounts from the ship's crew, at a press conference on June 14, 2019. He also completely dismissed the possibility that torpedos were involved, noting that the damage was too far above the waterline for this to be plausible. Late on June 13, 2019, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) released a video that showed either Iranian military personnel or members of Iran's powerful quasi-military Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) removing a possible limpet mine from the side of Kokuka Courageous.
It also provided photographs that sailors onboard the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Bainbridge had taken showing the object still attached to the ship's hull during rescue operations hours before. The U.S. military was not directly involved in the recovery of the crew of the Front Altair, the other tanker that had been a victim of attacks in the area around the same time.
“Our crew said that the ship was attacked by a flying object,” Katada told reporters. "I do not think there was a time bomb or an object attached to the side of the ship."
The rest of Kokuka Sangyo's statements are in direct conflict with the U.S. government's position. In its press release on June 13, 2019, CENTCOM said that Coastal Ace, a tug belonging to Dutch shipping company Acta Marine, had rescued the crew of the Kokuka Courageous after they abandoned the tanker specifically because they had spotted the possible unexploded mine on their ship's hull.
While we don't know for sure why these two very different stories have emerged, there are certainly plausible explanations for how an information disconnect may have occurred. Did the crew hear a second object "hitting" the hull amidships when this was actually the attackers placing another limpet mine? Did attackers employed other weapons, such as rocket-propelled grenades, before, during, or shortly after they placed the mines, which could account for the reports of a "flying object"?
It is also unclear from Kokuka Sangyo timeline whether the Kokuka Courageous made its distress call after the first attack, which reportedly caused an engine room fire, or after the second one that came three hours later. CENTCOM says U.S. forces in the region received the call from that ship at approximately 7:00 AM local time and that the USS Bainbridge was on the scene around four hours afterward.
At approximately 11:05 AM local time, the USS Bainbridge met up with the Coastal Ace in order to transfer the crew of the Kokuka Courageous. Some nine hours later, the Iranian Gashti-class fast boat approached the tanker and recovered the object from the hull before sailing away, as seen in the video below.
The U.S. government asserts that Iran was attempting to remove evidence of its involvement in the attack. Iran has denied any involvement and denies that its personnel recovered a mine, but has also offered no evidence to support those claims.
If it was an unexploded mine, the actions of the Iranians were both brazen and reckless, regardless of the country's involvement. Iran would have to have been aware of the various U.S. military assets in the area, including ships like Bainbridge and manned and unmanned aircraft, closely monitoring the situation.
If the object the personnel pulled from the hull was a mine, then there would also have been some risk that it might have finally detonated as it was being removed. There is no indication from the video that any effort was made to disarm the device before personnel on the boat yanked it off the ship's hull.
But there's no disputing that Iranian personnel did come back hours after the incident to recover something and that this activity was, by then, entirely unrelated to any rescuing of Kokuka Courageous' crew. By all accounts, Iranian forces initially retreated from the area around the ship after the Bainbridge arrived.
(more on the link)
Japanese Ship Owner Disputes U.S. Claims About Weapons Used In Tanker Attack
The shipping company says "flying objects" were to blame after the U.S. government releases imagery it says show a limpet mine on the ship.
The president of the shipping company that owns the Kokuka Courageous has said that "a flying object" caused the damage the ship suffered in an attack in the Gulf of Oman yesterday, directly disputing a U.S. government assessment. The U.S. military has released video and pictures that it says point to an Iranian attack using limpet mines. These competing narratives add to a flurry of confusing and contradictory claims that have been swirling around the incident since it occurred.
Yutaka Katada, president of shipping firm Kokuka Sangyo, offered his take, citing accounts from the ship's crew, at a press conference on June 14, 2019. He also completely dismissed the possibility that torpedos were involved, noting that the damage was too far above the waterline for this to be plausible. Late on June 13, 2019, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) released a video that showed either Iranian military personnel or members of Iran's powerful quasi-military Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) removing a possible limpet mine from the side of Kokuka Courageous.
It also provided photographs that sailors onboard the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Bainbridge had taken showing the object still attached to the ship's hull during rescue operations hours before. The U.S. military was not directly involved in the recovery of the crew of the Front Altair, the other tanker that had been a victim of attacks in the area around the same time.
“Our crew said that the ship was attacked by a flying object,” Katada told reporters. "I do not think there was a time bomb or an object attached to the side of the ship."
The rest of Kokuka Sangyo's statements are in direct conflict with the U.S. government's position. In its press release on June 13, 2019, CENTCOM said that Coastal Ace, a tug belonging to Dutch shipping company Acta Marine, had rescued the crew of the Kokuka Courageous after they abandoned the tanker specifically because they had spotted the possible unexploded mine on their ship's hull.
While we don't know for sure why these two very different stories have emerged, there are certainly plausible explanations for how an information disconnect may have occurred. Did the crew hear a second object "hitting" the hull amidships when this was actually the attackers placing another limpet mine? Did attackers employed other weapons, such as rocket-propelled grenades, before, during, or shortly after they placed the mines, which could account for the reports of a "flying object"?
It is also unclear from Kokuka Sangyo timeline whether the Kokuka Courageous made its distress call after the first attack, which reportedly caused an engine room fire, or after the second one that came three hours later. CENTCOM says U.S. forces in the region received the call from that ship at approximately 7:00 AM local time and that the USS Bainbridge was on the scene around four hours afterward.
At approximately 11:05 AM local time, the USS Bainbridge met up with the Coastal Ace in order to transfer the crew of the Kokuka Courageous. Some nine hours later, the Iranian Gashti-class fast boat approached the tanker and recovered the object from the hull before sailing away, as seen in the video below.
The U.S. government asserts that Iran was attempting to remove evidence of its involvement in the attack. Iran has denied any involvement and denies that its personnel recovered a mine, but has also offered no evidence to support those claims.
If it was an unexploded mine, the actions of the Iranians were both brazen and reckless, regardless of the country's involvement. Iran would have to have been aware of the various U.S. military assets in the area, including ships like Bainbridge and manned and unmanned aircraft, closely monitoring the situation.
If the object the personnel pulled from the hull was a mine, then there would also have been some risk that it might have finally detonated as it was being removed. There is no indication from the video that any effort was made to disarm the device before personnel on the boat yanked it off the ship's hull.
But there's no disputing that Iranian personnel did come back hours after the incident to recover something and that this activity was, by then, entirely unrelated to any rescuing of Kokuka Courageous' crew. By all accounts, Iranian forces initially retreated from the area around the ship after the Bainbridge arrived.
(more on the link)