US Navy hunting for Iraqi mine ships

THE US Navy has said it is searching for two Iraqi naval vessels that could be trying to lay mines “anywhere” in the Gulf.

In a notice to merchant shipping, seen by Reuters, the US Fifth Fleet's Maritime Liaison Office (MARLO) said coalition forces were hunting two vessels, the Al Shorook and the Al Fateh al Mobeen.

The enormous US-British naval presence in the Gulf has so far deterred any attacks on either military or merchant shipping in the region, with most mine-sweeping operations confined to the northern Gulf and Iraq's waterways.

But yesterday's disclosure is the first time an explicit mine threat has been publicly identified in the wider Gulf, evoking memories of the attack on the oil tanker The Limburg in the Gulf of Yemen last October.

It said the vessels, which remain at large, could be towing a barge or barges which could be used to deploy mines.

"A barge loaded with a large number of mines, and modified to deploy them, was recently captured in the Khor Abd Allah waterway," the statementsaid.

Roger Mortimer of London-based Maritime and Underwater Security Consultants, who has just returned from the Gulf, said even the threat ofmines in a strategicpoint like the Strait of Hormuzhave a major economic impact.

"They could sow mines around the Gulf or just simply say they had specifically laced the Hormuz with mines and that would be enough it would stop all traffic," said Mortimer, who has served on Royal Navy mine-countermeasure ships.

The 23-mile-wide Strait of Hormuz at the southern mouth of the Gulf is a conduit for 12 million barrels per day of crude oil from Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Iran andSaudi Arabia.

Pictures of the vessels were released to the wider maritime community, and can be viewed on the MARLO website at www.nsa.bahrain.navy.mil.

One of the vessels has the word "Pilot" stencilled across its hull.