WASHINGTON -- Iran was holding 10 U.S. Navy sailors and their two small boats that drifted into Iranian waters with mechanical problems, Pentagon officials said.
Iran accused the sailors of trespassing, but U.S. officials said Tuesday that Tehran has assured them that the crew and vessels would be returned safely and promptly.
The Navy crew members are safe and are expected to be released promptly, Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, said on CNN.
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said the riverine boats were moving between Kuwait and Bahrain when the U.S. lost contact with them.
It happened near Farsi Island in the middle of the Persian Gulf, officials said, and some type of mechanical trouble with one of the boats caused them to run aground. A radio signal from one of the boats showed that they were on Farsi Island, setting off efforts to contact the Iranians.
U.S. officials said they believe the craft steered off course and that the crews were aided, not captured, by Iranian forces. The sailors in Iranian custody remained on Farsi Island at least for some time.
"There doesn't seem to be anything malicious at work on either side," according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the internal assessment.
Officials said the sailors were part of Riverine Squadron 1 based in San Diego and were deployed to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet in Bahrain. When the U.S. lost contact with the boats, ships attached to the USS Harry S Truman aircraft carrier strike group began searching the area, along with aircraft flying off the Truman.
The squadron's boats were not part of the carrier strike group and were on a training mission as they traveled between Kuwait and Bahrain, officials said.
The semiofficial Iranian news agency Fars said the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's navy has detained 10 foreign servicemen -- nine men and one woman -- believed to be Americans, and said the sailors were trespassing in Iranian waters.
The craft had ventured about 1.2 miles inside Iran's maritime boundary, Fars reported.
Revolutionary Guard personnel were in possession of GPS equipment showing that the boats had traveled into Iranian waters, according to the report.
Each boat was armed with three .50-caliber machine guns, one in the front and one on each side, according to Fars.
The report did not mention any kind of a clash. Nor did Fars give any insight into the fate of those being held.
Farsi Island is home to gas and oil installations, in addition to the Revolutionary Guard base, and public access is restricted.
Ben Rhodes, a senior aide to President Barack Obama, indicated that the situation was still fluid.
"We were aware of circumstances surrounding the patrol in the Persian Gulf," Rhodes said. "We are working to resolve the situation so any U.S. personnel are returned to their normal deployment. ... Hopefully, it will be resolved."
A Pentagon official said the Navy "lost contact" with the two craft as they transited from Kuwait to Bahrain.
"We subsequently have been in communication with Iranian authorities, who have informed us of the safety and well-being of our personnel," said the official, who was not authorized to speak on the record. "We have received assurances the sailors will promptly be allowed to continue their journey."
Secretary of State John Kerry, who forged a working relationship with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif through three years of nuclear negotiations, called Zarif immediately on learning of the incident, according to a senior U.S. official. Kerry "personally engaged with Zarif on this issue to try to get to this outcome," the official said.
Kerry learned of the incident about 12:30 p.m. in Washington as he and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter were meeting their Filipino counterparts at the State Department, the official said.
The officials were not authorized to discuss the situation publicly so spoke on condition of anonymity.
Cotton reacts
The incident occurred hours before Obama was set to deliver his final State of the Union address to Congress and the public. It set off a dramatic series of calls and meetings as U.S. officials tried to determine the exact status of the crew and reach out to Iranian leaders.
Republican lawmakers seized on it as further evidence that Iran is not to be trusted.
"This kind of openly hostile action is not surprising," Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas said in an interview on CNN's The Situation Room. "It's exactly what I and so many others predicted when President Obama was negotiating the nuclear deal with Iran, that it would embolden their aggression towards the United States and our allies in the region."
Cotton criticized the White House administration's response to "brazen seizure," criticizing Obama's officials for "apologizing" on behalf of Iran.
"The White House, tonight, is a hotbed of cold feet," he added.
Cotton also said the timing, coinciding with Obama's final State of the Union address, was "humiliating" to the president and the United States.
"The nuclear deal is about to be implemented ... from which Iran will get hundreds of billions of dollars to continue its campaign of terror and aggression throughout the region and around the world," he said. "This is the ayatollah's trying to inflict maximum humiliation on the United States and on President Obama."
Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., said it was "unthinkable that the administration would lift sanctions and permit Iran to receive billions of dollars in sanctions relief under the nuclear agreement, even as the regime brazenly violates its international obligations and rushes to develop the ballistic missile capability to deliver a potential nuclear weapon to the United States."
The House was scheduled to vote today on GOP-backed legislation that would give Congress greater oversight of the landmark Iran nuclear agreement, which Republicans have derided as a victory for Tehran.
The incident near Farsi Island came on the heels of an instance in late December when Iran launched a rocket test near U.S. warships and boats passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
Meanwhile, Iran was expected to satisfy the terms of last summer's nuclear deal in just days.
Once the U.N. nuclear agency confirms Iran's actions to roll back its program, the United States and other Western powers are obliged to suspend wide-ranging oil, trade and financial sanctions on Tehran. Kerry recently said the deal's implementation was "days away."
The nuclear deal was signed in Vienna in July by Iran, the U.S. and five other world powers. Iran long has claimed its program has peaceful goals.
Information for this article was contributed by Lolita C. Baldor, Matthew Lee, Bradley Klapper, Richard Lardner and Nasser Karimi of The Associated Press; by W.J. Hennigan, Michael A. Memoli, Ramin Mostaghim, Brian Bennett and Patrick J. McDonnell of Tribune News Service; and by staff members of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
A Section on 01/13/2016