Up next in 10
Shelagh Fogarty is joined by Former Patrol Boat Commander Tom Sharpe after US Marines attacked and seized an Iranian cargo vessel - attempting to get past the blockade of Iran's ports. US President Donald Trump said in a post on social media that the ship was warned by a US Navy guided missile destroyer in the Gulf of Oman to stop, but it did not. Footage shared by US Central Command shows Marines board and seize cargo ship, Touska, by rappelling onto the vessel. A post shared on X said a guided-missile destroyer disabled Touska’s propulsion when the commercial ship failed to comply with repeated warnings from US forces over a six-hour period. In retaliation, Iran launched drone strikes on US military vessels in the Gulf of Oman, the Iranian semi-official news agency Tasnim has reported. There have been no reports of damage from the apparent drone attacks. Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp #shelaghfogarty #iranwar #LBC #trump #donaldtrump #news #usnews #uspolitics LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK. Join in the conversation and listen at https://www.lbc.co.uk/ Sign up to LBC’s weekly newsletter here: https://l-bc.co/signup
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
Footage that's been shared by the U.S. Central Command shows Marines boarding and seizing
0:04
the cargo ship, an Iranian cargo ship. Central Command says the U.S. destroyer hit the ship
0:12
called the Tuska, with several rounds from its five-inch gun. Videos provided by the Navy show
0:18
the warship firing three shots after warning the crew to evacuate the engine room
0:23
Motor vessel Tosca, motor vessel Tosca, vacate your engine room, vacate your engine room
0:30
We're prepared to subject you to disabling fire. let's talk to tom sharp a warship captain who served for over 25 years in the royal navy and
0:57
is now a columnist for the telegraph tom sharp good afternoon to you
1:02
What did you think when you saw that this moment had happened? I mean, the ceasefires, this one and others, are nervous times, aren't they? And there are often incursions during those early days. But what's your assessment of this one
1:16
The timing's very interesting, as you say, with negotiations sort of going on. Are they or aren't they? Ceasefire finishing in two days. Will it or won't it? A lot of uncertainty. And to inject in the middle of that uncertainty an action like this is certainly interesting timing
1:34
from a sort of naval officer's perspective, from a mariners perspective, I'm not even seeing it as the most efficient way to stop that ship
1:42
I mean, clearly it works, but it's not required. You could have got on board with a boarding team, which they then did
1:49
So to go through warnings, then engage with a very clumsy weapon
1:54
I mean, you know, firing at the engine room, that has had all mariners raising their eyebrows and going a few yards out
2:04
spaces. So it's not a precision weapon. It's the largest caliber cannon they have on board
2:10
And then, but then to board it anyway, with a team from the USS Tripoli, the sequencing of this is
2:16
very odd. It makes me think that bits of it are missing as far as far as I can tell. But, but
2:20
so the sequencing was odd, in micro terms and tactical terms, but in sequencing strategically
2:24
was odd too. So looking at it, you, your training and your experience would have done it the other
2:30
way around, warnings, cease, don't fire unless you absolutely have to. Yeah, I mean, all the turn around so far have been on the back of a warning. You call them up
2:39
on the radio and they go, okay, we'd better do a U-turn. And that's what's happened. If that
2:44
doesn't work, you do have escalatory options of which, you know, shot across the bow is a pretty
2:49
common one with a smaller caliber weapon. And you show them that you mean business. You could even
2:54
put what we would call non-disabling fire, you know, a few 30 mil shells into a container
2:59
let's say. And no one's going to run on from there. That's going to stop. And I think there
3:05
was a bit of a delay in this. They were with them for six hours, which means to me that the Spruance
3:10
the Arleigh Burke destroyer that did this, didn't have a boarding team that was capable of getting
3:15
on board this vessel. Container vessels are technically quite hard to board. They had to
3:19
wait until they were close enough to the USS Tripoli with all the US Marines on board to
3:24
conduct this boarding. So again, from a sequencing perspective, why send the spirits six hours away if it not capable of doing the thing you need to do at the end of this and so halfway through it decides to engage with its main caliber weapon like I say a lot of missing parts for me but odd timing
3:40
And are they hard to board because they're designed to be just a giant space for containers
3:46
They're not designed to be boarded in a sense. Well, it very much depends on the attitude of the ship
3:52
If it's a compliant boarding, then a container vessel is actually no more difficult than an oil tanker
3:57
You would think the giant deck space of an oil tanker would make it easier. But really, containers, you can fast rope out of a helicopter onto the containers
4:05
You then have to navigate those containers. Or there's normally a space right in the bow that you can get on as well
4:11
So it's doable. But if the tanker doesn't want you there, so it's non-compliant, i.e. it's abusing you, it's weaving
4:19
That looked to be the case in this instance, didn't it? Possibly. Possibly
4:23
But there's then a huge distinction between non-compliant and opposed. opposed as when they might shoot back and they start waving weapons at you now in our case that
4:31
would be special forces uh and you and you literally you blitz that vessel with everything
4:36
you have and i've seen that done on container vessels so it's it's perfectly doable you mean
4:40
you put people on you put yeah right you put special forces right special forces and no one
4:45
is you know that that that's the loss you know you're getting that vessel they're not fighting
4:49
back from that i've seen it it's incredible so you could argue that again if the team wasn't in
4:53
place to do this, if the right qualified team wasn't in place to do this, you could be forced
4:57
into shooting at them as a sort of interim measure. But yeah, very, very peculiar, very
5:03
gung-ho, very kind of forward leaning, which we now know that the US Navy always has been
5:08
but it looks like it's kind of going, you know, ratcheting up. If you could sit today and have a drink with one of the Marines that was part of that operation
5:17
a senior Marine, what would you, man to man, you know, sort of naval man to naval man
5:22
what would you be saying to them if you could speak very truthfully to them? Well, I've had these conversations with Marines and Special Forces
5:28
when they've come back from them. I mean, there's, you know, classically, you always focus on the amusing parts where something went slightly wrong
5:35
or there was a little glitch that they had to come around or the communications failed. The reality is you get on board, you control the area around you
5:43
you've got helicopter overwatch to ensure that no one pops out onto the bridge wing with a weapon and that you dominate that area
5:50
So would you be saying to him or her now, I think that was a bad operation you did there
5:56
No, I think the boarding was well conducted and nicely done. But the choice to fire
6:02
Yeah, it's firing before it. Why do that? With all the risk and firing at a commercial vessel
6:10
with civilian crews on board, it's a legally tricky precedent. They're not combatants
6:16
Yeah, it's important to say that this is the merchant navy, isn't it
6:20
Is your suspicion that it was a bit of Trump gung-ho, Hegseth gung-ho
6:27
I think it could have been. I think that's maybe why it took so long. They had to wait for orders
6:32
which again, militarily is very clumsy. You have your rules of engagement specifically
6:36
so that you can operate fast. So if you're waiting for direction from the Pentagon or
6:41
the White House, then that to me is problematic. And then when he initially posted that they'd
6:46
shot out the engines. This is President Trump. I thought he got this confused with the drug running boats
6:52
in the Caribbean where you do physically shoot out the engines. Shooting out an engine with a sniper rifle
6:59
is a rather different proposition to shooting out a container vessel's engine room with a five inch
7:03
With a missile. Yeah with a massive caliber gun So yeah like I say very very confused sequence of events very dramatic Donald Trump on Truth Social talked about several hours going by with warnings and
7:18
that's why they're fired on them. Have you ever been in a situation, just trying to get a sense
7:24
as to how you read a ship, have you ever been in a situation yourself where you're saying
7:28
stop, we need to communicate about your, the route you're taking, the reason for the route
7:34
Have you been in those situations? Yeah, I mean, hundreds of times. I've done boarding
7:39
You know, I've been in command of ships that have been in charge of boarding operations
7:42
hundreds of times, and you get very good at it. But look, this vessel was very clearly breaking sanctions
7:48
This was an easy one. It's a container vessel. They'll probably have a reasonable sense of that
7:51
We don't know what was in it yet, do we? No, they'll have a sense of that. So one of the things they will have been doing, a lot of this blockade, the US blockade
7:59
is about intelligence gathering. They need to know what's in the ships that are coming in and out
8:03
which ports have they been to in Iran and therefore what cargo do they or do they not have
8:09
so that's very much a part of it. If I may that's really interesting I haven't thought of that before
8:14
because I mean obviously they will find things out but I hadn't thought of it as one of the sort of ground reasons the fundamental reasons for it because Donald Trump in particular and Pete Hegseth
8:23
have been saying it's all about stopping Iranian shipping and Iranian profit from the Strait of
8:28
Hormuz but you're saying actually they're going to have a good look-see and see what's going on out
8:32
Yeah, it's about applying sufficient pain to bring Iran seriously to the negotiating table. Now, the primary way to do that is to clip their oil from inside the Persian Gulf. So stop those ships being able to either load up or then sail with that oil embarked. And so we've seen ships going in empty past the blockade and being ignored. But we've seen lots of ships trying to come out and being turned around. So this is an interesting departure from that because it's a container vessel
9:00
But I guarantee there will be something on that ship. There'll be something in that cargo manifest that was of interest to the US and of interest to Iran
9:10
Prior to the actual engagement. Which is why they went down the route they did with the degree of confidence they did
9:19
Again, tracking what's in container vessels is not easy. And quite often the masters of the ships don't always know
9:25
We've seen that over the years when containers catch fire. and the subsequent investigation shows that the manifest was not correct on board
9:33
So it's complex, but there will be something in that ship that triggered the alarm
9:38
They wanted to see. Yeah, we need to get on board. Donald Trump's talking in, you know, his usual sort of bombastic terms
9:43
but we have full custody of the ship now. We're seeing what's on board. I guess, well, you tell me, does what's on board now decide its fate, that ship
9:54
Yes, and you've got to take it somewhere. So there is a logistics change to this now, as there always is in maritime warfare
10:00
But now you've got to take a ship that essentially has no engine room. It might still be on fire
10:05
This, again, is why engaging that way is odd, because you've now got a potentially unsafe ship that you have to take somewhere to board and inspect
10:14
Now, where that place will be is not clear. I've assumed all along that Diego Garcia must be a front runner
10:20
But that's, you know, many, many miles away and a non-water type ship
10:25
So yeah, they have to find a safe place to get this thing in and it's got plenty of containers
10:29
That search will take weeks and you have to be alongside to do it
10:35
I know we very different countries and how we are run and who the commander in chief is and all of that but can you you see a situation you know thinking as a military man who been in these tense situations can you see a situation where
10:51
if if Donald Trump was the head of the navy the royal navy and and had the power to say
11:00
do that and do it this way would would people like you be able to say no well you just don't
11:08
find yourself in that situation because you have ministerially approved rules of engagement
11:13
So that is specifically designed to protect you. Which you're already familiar with. You're 100% familiar with and they are specifically designed to provide you with
11:21
guardrails for these situations. So it's very unlikely you'd get an order from the commander
11:26
in chief personally to go to do this. But if you did, you then got to reconcile that with your
11:31
understanding of maritime law and so on. But of course, there's no doubt in this country where
11:36
we're leaning too far the other way when it comes to, say, the dark fleet. Our inaction there is causing all sorts of problems as we wring our hands about the legalities
11:44
And just explain to people what the dark fleet is. The Russian illicit oil
11:48
Unflagged. Yeah, right. But of course, we've waited so long. Sheila, they are now flagged
11:53
They now have Russian flags, the ones that come past us. So our window to legally board them, if you're interested in the legality of this
12:01
has now been closed because we've taken so long. so we do have these vastly opposing views between us and america on how to conduct maritime
12:10
interdiction operations at sea which so technically could lead to the situation you described where
12:15
you've got a set of rules of engagement and then the guy at the top says or the girl at the top
12:19
says right i want you to do this specifically and then you've got a now you've got a problem but
12:23
like i say our system is geared to not explicitly to stop that ever happening and in the wider
12:30
a picture on the Strait of Hormuz just to finish because it's important that we remember a lot of
12:34
the people on the ships, all of the ships that want to use that strait, are non-military merchant
12:41
seamen and women and the risk to them on that strait is extraordinary. Donald Trump said on
12:49
Friday, I think it was, perhaps Saturday, that Iran and America was working on demining
12:53
the strait. Is that likely to be the case? It has to be done, but I don't think it's being
13:02
done at the moment. I'd say this. I don't think mines have been used. I think the problem with
13:06
mines is you can just say they've been used and it has the same effect. I think mines haven't been
13:11
used for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the US stormed those two destroyers in the middle of
13:16
the ceasefire talks and back out again, the two Arleigh Burke destroyers. They wouldn't have done
13:21
that if they thought there was a legitimate mine risk. And then since then, we've had four cruise
13:25
liners heading out around the tip of Oman. Again, you know, no mines seen. And plus, Iran had control
13:34
of the strait anyway. I don't think it needed to use mines to increase that level of control
13:39
because it had it. But that doesn't assure shipping. At some point, someone other than me
13:44
is going to have to tell all these ships that there are no mines. And that requires a mine
13:48
clearing effort. But we have all, all of us, and by all of us, I mean all Western countries
13:53
the US included, have allowed our ability to do that wither on the promise of a technological
13:59
solution, autonomy, that's not ready yet. So the US has very little. And the worst time
14:06
these chickens were always going to come home at the worst time. And so the US has very little capability. And critically, you're not sending anything into that straight to clear minds
14:14
because you're doing it at three or four knots over a very long period of time if you think there's an extant Iranian threat
#news