Bolton alleges Iran maritime sabotage but evidence points at US itself

Whitney Webb

The accusations against Iran come only weeks after US mine-laying ships and divers ran drills in the same area that the alleged sabotage incidents took place in Gulf of Oman off the UAE port of Fujairah where four ships were reportedly damaged, says Chile-based investigative journalist Whitney Webb, in her article for MintPress, titled: “Bolton alleges Iran maritime sabotage but evidence points at US itself.”

Recently, US National Security Advisor John Bolton told a group of reporters in Abu Dhabi that “naval mines almost certainly from Iran” had been used to conduct the alleged “sabotage” attack on four commercial vessels off the coast of the United Arab Emirates’ port of Fujairah earlier this month. Bolton continued, providing no evidence for his claim: “There is no doubt in anybody’s mind in Washington who is responsible for this and I think it’s important that the leadership in Iran know that we know.”

Bolton was in Abu Dhabi ahead of the “emergency” summit in Saudi Arabia, where top US and allied Arab officials discussed the implications of the tanker attacks, and drone strikes two days later, on oil pumping stations in the British-created kingdom.

The murkiness that still surrounds what caused this tanker “sabotage,” as well as the very limited extent of the alleged damage, suggests that this poorly executed incident either did not go as planned or that it was a freak accident that has now been manipulated for weeks by the US and its regional allies for political gain. Iran, however, is far from being the clear culprit, especially given that three foreign militaries — including the US Navy — concluded a mine warfare naval drill just weeks before the “sabotage” incident occurred.

MintPress previously reported on the tanker “sabotage” attacks soon after they occurred and noted that the incident was so minor that the local government of Fujairah had initially denied that any “sabotage” had taken place and maintained that its port facilities were operating normally.

Only the US had cast blame prior to Bolton’s statements, with the “initial assessment” of a group of US military investigators rapidly concluding that Iran or what it called “forces sympathetic to or working for Iran” had used explosives to damage the four commercial vessels. Public evidence to support that claim has been minimal and, at times, counter to the official narrative. For instance, one of the Saudi vessels allegedly targeted, “al-Marzoqah”, was seen floating without any visible damage in post-attack footage taken by Sky News, even though the Saudis had claimed that the vessel had sustained “significant damage.” One US official told the Associated Press that each of the four ships had sustained a 5- to 10-foot hole near or just below the water line, but only one such hole has been observed in just one of the targeted ships.

Iran has consistently rejected any involvement in the incident, with Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi warning against a “conspiracy orchestrated by ill-wishers” and “adventurism by foreigners.”

Bolton’s statement, however, echoes other recent statements made by US officials that sea mines — either floating mines or limpet mines, which attach magnetically to the targeted ship’s hull — were likely responsible for the relatively minor hull damage allegedly experienced by the four ships. Top US military officials — such as Rear Admiral Michael Gilday, the director of the Joint Staff — have attributed the mines to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which the Trump administration designated a terrorist organization in early April. Yet, recent events in the Persian Gulf suggest that the sea mines likely responsible for the attack may not have been of Iranian origin.

Before delving into the definite possibility that the mines in question were not of Iranian origin at all, it is worth considering that even if the mine(s) that were allegedly used in the tanker “sabotage” were Iranian, they had not been planted recently by Iranian forces.

First, in the event that these were floating mines, the preparation made for the deployment of mines is often detected well before the mines are even sea bound. Placing mines at sea is a massive logistical undertaking involving multiple steps that allow adversaries to detect and disrupt their deployment well in advance.

As Bob O’Donnell, a retired Navy Captain and veteran minesweeper, told Breaking Defense in 2015, the first step involves removing mines from storage facilities, given that “countries will have their mines in ammo dumps somewhere, [but] without any sensors in them. The first step is they take them out of the dumps and take them someplace where they put the sensors in.” As Breaking Defense noted, “the more mines they move, the more people and trucks they need, which makes it more likely someone will let something slip or that US spy satellites will notice suspicious activity.” Then, the mines must be placed in the water, which is usually performed by ships, or aircraft or submarines in the case of specialized mines.

Given this, the lack of satellite images, which would have shown Iran’s military engaged in these types of activities that precede mine deployment, is telling. This is because Iran’s military and its movements are under heavy scrutiny from foreign governments and satellite images of alleged Iranian military or nuclear assets have frequently accompanied official narratives that push for more aggressive policies towards Iran.

For instance, a considerable part of the basis for the alleged Iranian “threat” to US troops in the region, which has been the foundation for the recent rise in tensions, has been based on satellite imagery. If private companies, the US military and U.S. intelligence often use satellite imagery to back up their claims regarding Iran — particularly its use of military assets — the fact that such images are not present to back these claims of mine deployment is telling.

Iran is unlikely to have sought to lay mines. Furthermore, the claim of “unmarked boats” made by several US officials in recent weeks is notable for the fact that the use of “unmarked boats” in no way insinuates Iranian culpability. In fact, the use of such boats makes it plausible that anyone could have laid the mines. Yet, even then, Iran has little or nothing to gain from this “sabotage” event, especially considering the logistical undertaking it would require to lay just a handful of mines in a busy commercial shipping zone without causing major damage.

Given the lack of any evidence for Iran’s involvement in the sabotage, the mines in question could have come from another country’s military, and may have been planted by the US itself, in view of the fact that the Persian Gulf was the site of a major foreign military mine warfare drill just a few weeks before the attack lends credibility to such a possibility.

On April 15, just a week after the US labeled Iran’s IRGC as a terrorist organization, Bolton received intelligence on the threat by Iran from his Israeli counterpart, Meir Ben Shabbat, when the two met in Washington to discuss their “shared commitment to countering Iran.” That same day, in the Persian Gulf, a major naval drill known as “Artemis Trident” began among the navies of the US, the UK and France. The focus of that large naval drill, which ended on April 18, was sea mine warfare in the Persian Gulf.

Though the militaries involved described the drill as purely defensive in nature, the US contingent included Naval Task Force 52, which — according to the US Navy — “plans and executes mine warfare operations in support of US 5th Fleet operational objectives.” In the Persian Gulf, the US Fifth Fleet has bases both in Bahrain — where Artemis Trident took place — and in Fujairah, where the now infamous “sabotage” incident took place just a few weeks later.

As MintPress previously reported, the U.S. Department of Transportation is currently headed by Elaine Chao, a known Iran-hawk who was paid $50,000 for a five-minute speech to the MKO terrorists. Other top US officials, such as Bolton, have also been paid hefty sums for appearances and speeches at MKO events, where they have openly advocated for the overthrow of the Iranian government.

The naval exercise was one of the first major naval exercises of the Fifth Fleet to take place after the sudden, mysterious death of the fleet’s commander, Admiral Scott Stearney, last December. Stearney was found dead in his home in Bahrain and the death has been labeled an “apparent suicide” and is still being jointly investigated by the Navy and Bahrain, with no new conclusions nearly six months after the fact. Stearney was known for opposing a major escalation with Iran.

The presence of foreign, particularly US, mine-laying ships and divers in the region close to the same time frame as the “sabotage” incident makes it a definite possibility that the mines in question could have been American, British or French — not Iranian — in origin. In that case, the mines either could have been accidentally left over from that drill or intentionally set after the fact, given that the hardware and specialized naval vessels used in deploying mines were all present at the time of the “sabotage” incident. While the evidence for this is circumstantial, it is worth pointing out that the same evidence being used to link Iran to the same mines is just as circumstantial and arguably less convincing, given the lack of any benefit derived from this “sabotage” attack from the Iranian point of view.