LAT: Capture of British sailors is all too familiar, rules of engagement at issue

[maddezmom]

Capture of British sailors is all too familiar
Iran also seized three servicemen in 2004, but this time raises added alarm.
By Kim Murphy, Times Staff Writer
March 25, 2007


LONDON — A disconcerting sense of deja vu surrounds Iran's capture of 15 British sailors and marines on smuggling patrol Friday in the Persian Gulf.

Three years ago, eight British servicemen traveling in small boats up the Shatt al Arab waterway near the Iranian border with Iraq found themselves surrounded by members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard, arrested and subjected to a three-day ordeal that included mock executions and a visit to what they thought would be their graves. After a few days, they were released.

The previous incident raises concerns here over what the captured sailors and marines may be going through, and has also raised questions about the rules of engagement that do not allow British military officers on smuggling patrol in the Persian Gulf to return fire when confronted, a former senior navy official said Saturday.

"I think if we're going to be operating in those waters and something like this happens, we have to think very carefully about, rather than being de-escalatory, stepping back and turning the other cheek, whether we should be responding in some different way," Alan West, who commanded the British navy during the June 2004 incident, said in a telephone interview.

more:http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-brits25mar25,1,2114727.story?coll=la-news-a_section

[zalinda]

1. Easy solution...............don't smuggle!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't know what they were trying to smuggle since I can't read the article. But doesn't the word smuggle, imply that it is illegal?

zalinda

[DavidDvorkin]

2. The Brits weren't smuggling

They were on patrol checking for smugglers.