'If the world wants to make the region insecure, we will make the world insecure': Iran threatens to shut Strait of Hormuz with military exercise
- Four mile-wide strait is world's most important oil shipping lane
- Price of crude leaps after false reports lane had already been closed off
- Cheney calls for airstrike after Iran's refusal to hand back downed spy plane
- Iranian fury over Congress calls to assassinate key members of their Revolutionary Guard
Iran is threatening to close off the world's most important oil shipping lane as tensions between it and the West mount following the capture of an unmanned American spy plane.
Parviz Sarvari, a member of the Iranian parliament's National Security Committee, said his country was preparing to close off the crucial Strait of Hormuz as part of a military exercise.
Around a third of all shipped oil passes through the four mile-wide Strait between Oman and Iran and U.S. warships patrol the area to ensure safe passage.
Threat: An Iranian politician claims the country's military is preparing to close off the Strait of Hormuz - the most important oil transport channel in the world
Most of the crude exported from Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq - together with nearly all the liquefied natural gas from lead exporter Qatar is transported through the channel.
Mr Sarvari told the Iranian student news agency ISNA: 'Soon we will hold a military manoeuvre on how to close the Strait of Hormuz. If the world wants to make the region insecure, we will make the world insecure.'
Parviz Sarvari, a member of the Iranian parliament's National Security Committee, said Iran was preparing to close off the Strait as part of an exercise
After a news agency mistakenly reported the straight had already been closed, crude oil prices leapt by almost $2 to $100.45/per barrel, but they later stabilised.
Last month, Iran's energy minister told Al Jazeera that Tehran could use oil as a political tool in the event of any future conflict over its nuclear program.
Tensions over the program have increased since the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported on November 8 that Tehran appears to have worked on designing a nuclear bomb and may still be pursuing research to that end. Iran strongly denies this and says it is developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
Iran has warned it will respond to any attack by hitting Israel and U.S. interests in the Gulf and analysts say one way to retaliate would be to close the Strait of Hormuz.
Yesterday former U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney said President Obama should have ordered an airstrike over Iran after their refusal to hand back the unmanned spyplane that crashed last week.
During a White House news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Mr Obama said: 'We have asked for it back. We'll see how the Iranians respond.'
But Mr Cheney told CNN: 'The right response would have been to go in immediately after it had gone down and destroy it.
Important: Around a third of the world's shipped oil passes through the Strait
'You can do that from the air and, in effect, make it impossible for them to benefit from having captured that drone, but [Obama] asked nicely for them to return it, and they aren't going to.'
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he had not intention of returning the RQ-170 Sentinel high-altitude reconnaissance drone.
Mr Cheney added that the Iranians will likely send the drone back 'in pieces after they’ve gotten all the intelligence they can out of it.'
Interviewed on Venezuelan television last night, President Ahmadinejad said: 'There are people here who have been able to control this spy plane, who can surely analyse this plane's system also.
Former U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney said President Obama should have ordered an airstrike over Iran after their refusal to hand back the unmanned spy plane that crashed last week
'The Americans have perhaps decided to give us this spy plane. We now have control of this plane.'
Mr Obama refused to comment on what the Iranians might learn from studying the drone.
U.S. officials say Iran had nothing to do with the drone crashing to earth and claim it simply malfunctioned.
General Hossein Salami, deputy head of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard, said on state television that the violation of Iran's airspace by the U.S. drone was a 'hostile act' and warned of a 'bigger' response.
Officials in Iran even believe they can 'mass produce' the captured bat-winged stealthy RQ-170 Sentinel and build a 'superior' version following its crash on December 4.
Parviz Sorouri, the head of Iran's parliamentary national security committee, said today: 'Our next action will be to reverse-engineer the aircraft.
'In the near future, we will be able to mass produce it ... Iranian engineers will soon build an aircraft superior to the American using reverse engineering.'
It also emerged today that Iran has lodged a complaint with Interpol following calls made during U.S. congressional hearings to assassinate members of Tehran’s security agency.
Former U.S. Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Jack Keane and former CIA operative Reuel Marc Gerecht, now a senior fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the subcommittee hearing on 'Iranian Terror Operations on American Soil,' that they were in favour of carrying out covert operations against members of Qods, a special unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guard.
In his speech, Keane suggested sanctions against Tehran were not sufficient and suggested cyberattacks, covert actions and assassination would be more effective.
He told the hearing: 'Why are we permitting the Qods Force leaders, who have been organizing this killing of us for 30 years, to go around, still walking around?
'Why don’t we kill them? We kill other people who are running terrorist organizations against the United States. These guys have killed almost a thousand of us. Why don’t we kill them?'
And Gerecht said: 'Iran would not look like the country it is today if they were concerned about the bottom line.
Boast: Officials in Iran claim they can 'mass produce' the captured RQ-170 Sentinel drone and build a 'superior' version following its crash on December 4
'So I don’t think that you’re going to really intimidate these people, get their attention, unless you shoot somebody – it’s pretty blunt, but I don’t think you get to get around it.'
Iran’s national prosecutor general, Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejei told Iranian television that a case had been opened and that the judiciary was 'providing more documents to the Interpol, so that the two Americans, who have threatened the Iranian commander with assassination, would be prosecuted.'
The hearing, which took place on October 26, was held in response to an alleged plot by Qods to assassinate of the Saudi ambassador in Washington and carry out a string of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.
Qods' commander General Ghasem Soleimani has been accused of numerous covert terrorist activities, including helping Shi’ite militias carry out attacks on U.S. and British troops in Iraq.
Gerecht told the hearing: 'Ghasem Soleimani travels a lot, he’s all over the place.
'Go get him. Either try to capture him, or kill him. I think you have to send a pretty powerful message to those who have undertaken this, or I think down the road you’re asking for it. They will read this not as a response of someone who’s strong, but as a response of someone who’s weak.'
Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi claims the remarks were part of a 'devilish triangle of terrorism, human rights violation and use of WMDs' by the U.S..'
The Iranians have also highlighted a letter to President Obama from House Homeland Security Committee chairman Rep. Peter King and two subcommittee chairs urging 'significant covert action against the Iranian regime, including against facilities and personnel responsible for killing our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.'
