15 British navy personnel detained by Iranian military

Britain was today facing a new diplomatic crisis with Iran after 15 Royal Navy sailors and Royal Marines were seized at gunpoint by Iranian warships off Iraq.

Britain's Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett ordered the Iranian ambassador to be summoned to the UK Foreign Office to demand their immediate release.

The incident happened after the boarding party from the HMS Cornwall had carried out a routine search of a cargo ship in the northern Persian Gulf.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said that they had been in Iraqi territorial waters at the time.

The ship’s commanding officer Commodore Nick Lambert said that every effort was being made to secure the release of the boarding party.

He said that contact had been lost with the group after they had carried out the search of the cargo boat.

“We did have a helicopter in the area. Our understanding from that is that the boarding party returned to its boats which were then promptly arrested by a group of Iranian patrol boats inside Iraqi territorial waters,” he told the BBC.

Commodore Lambert said that the 15 were all believed to be safe.

“The helicopter reported that they saw the boats being moved up the Shatt al-Arab waterway towards an Iranian base up there,” he said.

“We know that there was no fighting, there was no engagement of weapons or anything like that, it was entirely peaceful.

“We have been assured from the scant communications that we have had with the Iranians at the tactical level that 15 people are safely in their hands.”