ISTANBUL -- President Donald Trump rejected Iran's denials Friday that it attacked two tankers in the Gulf of Oman, insisting in a television interview that "Iran did do it" and pointing to a video released by the U.S. Central Command purporting to show Iranian vessels retrieving an unexploded mine from one of the damaged ships.
However, the head of the Japanese shipping company that owns one of the targeted tankers challenged the U.S. assertion that the vessel was attacked with limpet mines. He said Friday that the crew reported it was hit by "a flying object."
Iran called the U.S. allegations against it "alarming."
In an interview on Fox News' Fox & Friends program, Trump said, referring to the Central Command video: "Well, Iran did do it, and you know they did it because you saw the boat."
He added: "I guess one of the mines didn't explode, and it's probably got essentially Iran written all over it. And you saw the boat at night, trying to take the mine off and successfully took the mine off the boat. And that was exposed. That was their boat. That was them, and they didn't want the evidence left behind."
Trump also denounced Iran's leadership while expressing interest in negotiations. "They're a nation of terror, and they've changed a lot since I've been president," he said. "They're in deep, deep trouble." He later added: "They've been told in very strong terms ... we want to get them back to the table if they want to get back. I'm in no rush."
Yutaka Katada, president of the Kokuka Sangyo shipping firm that owns the Kokuka Courageous tanker, told reporters Friday in Tokyo: "The crew are saying it was hit with a flying object. They say something came flying toward them, then there was an explosion, then there was a hole in the vessel. Then some crew witnessed a second shot."
Katada added: "To put a bomb on the side is not something we are thinking. If it's between an explosion and a penetrating bullet, I have a feeling it is a penetrating bullet. If it was an explosion, there would be damage in different places, but this is just an assumption or a guess." He said he did not believe that the tanker was struck "because it was Japanese," as that would have been difficult for an attacker to determine.
"When the shell hit, it was above the water surface by quite a lot," Katada said. "Because of that, there is no doubt that it wasn't a torpedo."
He said the ship's crew saw an Iranian military ship in the vicinity on Thursday night Japan time, Reuters news agency reported.
Earlier, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the United States had "immediately jumped to make allegations against Iran -- [without] a shred of factual or circumstantial evidence," and he accused the Trump White House of "economic terrorism" and "sabotage diplomacy."
Appearing Friday on CNN after Trump blamed Iran for the attacks, the House Foreign Affairs Committee's top Republican, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, urged the administration to focus on diplomacy. "We always want peace," he said. "Not war."
The White House said Trump spoke Friday with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was in Tehran meeting with top Iranian leaders when the tankers were attacked. The two discussed "the circumstances surrounding the attacks," and Trump thanked Abe "for his effort to facilitate communication with Iran," the White House said.
VIDEO RELEASED
The U.S. Central Command late Thursday released a black-and-white U.S. video of the Iranians alongside the Kokuka Courageous after the crew had abandoned ship after seeing the undetonated explosive on its hull, said Capt. Bill Urban, a spokesman for the Central Command. The command separately shared photos of the vessel, which showed what appeared to be a conical limpet mine against its side.
In the video, the boat from Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard pulls alongside Kokuka Courageous at 4:10 p.m. Thursday. The Iranians reach up and grab along where the limpet mine could be seen in the photo. They then sail away.
Limpet mines, which are magnetic and attach to a ship's hull, are designed to disable a vessel without sinking it.
Analysts say Iran, if involved, wouldn't want investigators to find an unexploded mine because they could check its serial numbers and other attributes to trace it.
"The U.S. and the international community stand ready to defend our interests, including the freedom of navigation," Urban said in a statement. "The United States has no interest in engaging in a new conflict in the Middle East. However, we will defend our interests."
Trump last year withdrew the United States from an international agreement to limit Iran's nuclear program that was signed in 2015 under his predecessor, President Barack Obama. He has since then reinstated economic sanctions aimed at compelling the Iranians to return to the negotiating table.
Last month, the U.S. ended waivers that allowed some countries to continue buying Iranian oil, a move that is starving Iran of oil income and that coincided with what U.S. officials called a surge in intelligence pointing to Iranian preparations for attacks against U.S. forces and interests in the Gulf region.
In response to those intelligence warnings, the U.S. on May 5 announced it was accelerating the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier battle group to the Gulf region. It also sent four nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to Qatar and has beefed up its defenses in the region by deploying more Patriot air defense systems.
Officials said Pentagon deliberations about possibly sending more military resources to the region, including more Patriot missile batteries, could be accelerated by Thursday's attack on the oil tankers.
At the Pentagon, acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said Iran is not just a U.S. problem. He said the U.S. goal is to "build international consensus to this international problem," and to ensure that U.S. military commanders in the region get the resources and support they need.
In remarks to reporters later, Shanahan noted the commercial and strategic importance of the Strait of Hormuz, through which passes about 20% of the world's oil.
"So, we obviously need to make contingency plans should the situation deteriorate," he said.
NATIONS SPEAK OUT
U.S. officials said several nations are consulting about how to respond. One option may be to provide military escorts for commercial tankers moving through the Strait of Hormuz, one official said, although no decision has been made.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Iran on Thursday for the "blatant assault" on the vessels and said the United States would defend itself and its allies against Iranian aggression in the region.
Germany's government Friday called for an investigation into the "extraordinarily worrying" incident and said it had no information on who carried out the attacks.
A "spiral of escalation" must be avoided, a spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters Friday in Berlin.
In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang urged restraint and said China hopes that "all sides can jointly safeguard navigational safety in the relevant waters," news agencies reported.
"Nobody wants to see war in the Gulf," he said. "That is not in anyone's interest."
Without assigning blame, France's Foreign Ministry said in a statement Thursday: "We call upon all of the involved stakeholders, with whom we are in permanent contact, to exercise restraint and to de-escalate. We also reiterate our commitment to the freedom of navigation, which must absolutely be preserved."
But Britain is giving the U.S. explanation the benefit of the doubt, said Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who is seeking to become leader of the Conservative Party.
"This is deeply worrying and comes at a time of already huge tension," Hunt said in a statement on Friday. "I have been in contact with Pompeo and, while we will be making our own assessment soberly and carefully, our starting point is obviously to believe our U.S. allies."
Anwar Gargash, the minister of state for foreign affairs in the United Arab Emirates, wrote on Twitter on Thursday that the attack was "a worrying development and a dangerous escalation that calls for the international community to move towards ensuring regional security and stability."
The two tankers, which carried petrochemicals from the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz and into the Gulf of Oman, were targeted early Thursday in what observers said marked a serious escalation in the strategic waterway. It connects energy supplies from Arab nations in the Gulf, as well as Iran, to consumers around the globe.
A U.S. defense official said the USS Bainbridge, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer that was in the area, took on board 21 crew members from the Japanese-owned ship. Iran's navy also rescued crew members from the Front Altair, a Norwegian-owned ship.
"The responsibility for the security of the Strait of Hormuz lies with the Islamic Republic of Iran, and we showed that we were able to rescue the sailors of the ship as soon as possible," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Seyyed Abbas Mousavi said, Iran's state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
The accusation against Iran, he said, is "not only not funny ... but alarming and worrisome."
Information for this article was contributed by Erin Cunningham, Simon Denyer, William Branigin, Karoun Demirjian, Anne Gearan, Carol Morello and Akiko Kashiwagi of The Washington Post; by Robert Burns, Lolita C. Baldor, Zeke Miller, Matthew Lee, Jon Gambrell, Edith M. Lederer, Mari Yamaguchi and Nasser Karimi of The Associated Press; and by Ben Dooley of The New York Times.
A Section on 06/15/2019