Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Ummm... About the Iranian Navy Ships Transiting the Suez Canal

Two things:
Debka had the scoop on Jan. 23.
I looked for a second source, couldn't find anyone else reporting the story and promptly forgot about it.

Here's the Debka story:
Iranian warships coming to Mediterranean and Red Seas
Here's their follow-up Feb. 16:
Two Iranian warships transit Suez for Syria, tighten siege on Israel 
In between those two they had the report of the ships docking at Jeddah Saudi Arabia.

Here's the Iranian Navy's Order of Battle.
It's not a very big navy, 13,000 sailors, some frigates, a homemade destroyer, a cruiser and these guys:



On Feb. 2 WAVY-TV (Hampton Roads) reported that the USS Enterprise and her crew of 6000, along with the cruiser Leyte Gulf and the rest of the Carrier Strike Group had passed the Straits of Gibralter on their way to Turkey and then the Suez Canal. The big boat is going to take up position in the Red Sea off of Iran.

I'm thinking that no one but some dumb-assed oil trader was surprised by the Iranian move.