A US Navy ship has rescued 13 Iranians held hostage by Somali pirates for weeks in the Arabian sea, US military officers said Friday. The USS Kidd, a destroyer, responded to a distress call from an Iranian-flagged fishing vessel and a Navy team boarded the boat, freeing the Iranian crew and detaining 15 suspected pirates, the Fifth Fleet said in a statement.
The incident was an unexpected twist after days of rising tensions between Iran and the United States, with Tehran issuing threats and warning the Americans not to send the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier through the Strait of Hormuz. But one of the ships accompanying the Stennis, the USS Kidd, came to the rescue Thursday of Iranians on the fishing dhow Al Molai, whose captain issued a call on for help saying "he was being held captive by the pirates," said the statement from the Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain.
"A visit, board, search and seizure team from Kidd boarded the Al Molai and detained 15 suspected pirates who had been holding a 13-member Iranian crew hostage for several weeks," it said. The detained pirates - who were believed to be Somalis - were being held on the Stennis, said a Pentagon spokesman, Captain John Kirby.