Iran Royal Navy Hostages What Really Happened in 2007 is an event that at the time was global news. From my perspective as Her Majesty’s Consul to Iran at the time, it was a hopelessly frustrating and humiliating experience. As a proud maritime nation, it was also not exactly one of our finest moments.
Now I had a saying at the time that whenever the Iranians got twitchy or felt threatened, they would take hostages. They had form for this and in this case they didn’t let me down.
In fact this 2007 incident was not the first time they had detained British military personnel.
In June 2004, three small vessels and eight Royal Navy personnel were detained by Iranian forces after they allegedly entered Iranian waters on the Shatt al-Arab river without permission. At the time, the story was broken when the capture was announced on state-run Iranian television. British officials only stated that they had “lost contact” with the boats, before confirming their detention.
On that occasion the men were later released unharmed, but only after being paraded blindfolded on Iranian TV and made to apologise for their role in the incident. The equipment was not returned.
So now fast forward to Friday March 23rd 2007:
Fifteen British Royal Navy and Royal Marines personnel were captured by Iranian authorities, more specifically the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) at gunpoint in the Persian Gulf just off the Iraqi coast that morning.
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Wikipedia