Iran Builds Several Suicide Bomb Boats

By: Pat Prescott
02/13/2012 09:50 AM ET

Iran builds several suicide bomb boats for retaliation, on US forces in the Persian Gulf, if sanctions are placed on its oil trade or an attack is made against its nuclear program.

In recent weeks, Iran has also beefed up their naval forces in the area and now the country builds a suicide attack team made up of bomb boats.

“They have increased the number of submarines… they increased the number of fast attack craft,” Vice Admiral Mark Fox told reporters. “Some of the small boats have been outfitted with a large warhead that could be used as a suicide explosive device. The Iranians have a large mine inventory.”

“We have watched with interest their development of long range rockets and short, medium and long-range ballistic missiles and of course, the development of their nuclear program,” Fox, who heads the US Fifth Fleet, said at a briefing on the fleet’s base in the Gulf state of Bahrain.

Currently, the US has positioned the Navy’s Fifth Fleet in the Gulf, which contains one super carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, which is accompanied by a fleet of frigates and destroyers. According to military experts the one US fleet is more than enough firepower to overwhelm the entire Iranian Navy.

However, the suicide boats pose a risk to the US ships and any other trade ships going through the Strait of Hormuz. In 1996, 17 US sailors lost their lives when an al-Qaida suicide boat struck the USS Cole while it was in port in Yemen.

When asked if he took Iran’s threats seriously of blocking the strait, Fox Said: “Could they make like extremely difficult for us? Yes, they could. If we did nothing and they were able to operate without being inhibited, yeah they could close it, but I can’t see that we would ever be in that position.”

In recent weeks word has come that Israel is planning strikes against Iran nuclear sites soon. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia has said that if Iran were to obtain nuclear weapons that it would seek out nuclear weapons of its own.

Source: Iran Suicide Bomb Boats