US Navy Ship Fires Warning Shots at Iranian Navy Vessel

US Officials confirmed that the USS Squall fired three warning shots at an Iranian Revolution Guard small boat only 200 yards away. Charging at a US Navy ship can only be regarded as a provocation in maritime terms; an invitation to shoot missiles. The incident happened Thursday, at 11:45 am PST.

The vessels were probably revolutionary Guard vessels. Whereas the regular military defends Iran's borders and maintains internal order, according to the Iranian constitution, the Revolutionary Guard is intended to protect the country's Islamic system. The Revolutionary Guards state that their role in protecting the Islamic system is preventing foreign interference as well as coups by the military or "deviant movements".

USS Squall (PC-7) is the seventh Cyclone class patrol (coastal) ship. She was commissioned by the United States Navy 4 July 1994. In 2013, Squall shifted homeport to Naval Support Activity Bahrain.

The Revolutionary Guards have roughly 125,000 military personnel including ground, aerospace and naval forces. Its naval forces are now the primary forces tasked with operational control of the Persian Gulf. It also controls the paramilitary Basij militia which has about 90,000 active personnel. Its media arm is Sepah News.

It can fairly be said that the Revolutionary Guards operates independently, and therefore has its own foreign policy which is stridently anti US.

Since its origin as an ideologically driven militia, the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution has taken an ever more assertive role in virtually every aspect of Iranian society. Its expanded social, political, military, and economic role under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration-especially during the 2009 presidential election and post-election suppression of protest-has led many analysts to argue that its political power has surpassed even that of the Shia Clerics

In a separate incident, 4 ships belonging to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) "harassed" an American destroyer in the Strait of Hormuz Tuesday, a U.S. Navy official confirmed to Fox News.

The official said the Iranian ships carried out a "high-speed intercept," with two of the vessels coming within 300 yards of the USS Nitze, a 500 foot long Arleigh Burke class Destroyer--a very large surface ship.

The Navy official described the incident as "unsafe and unprofessional," adding that the Iranian ships "created a dangerous, harassing situation that could have led to further escalation."

The USS Nitze was accompanied by the guided missile destroyer USS Mason on what the official described as a "routine transit" in international waters at the time of the incident.