Trump says US will ‘destroy’ Iranian gunboats that harass American ships

I wouldn't give rumors like that much credence. The exercise wasn't part of any of the large naval exercises that attract senior officials. And if any of them had been killed, you would have heard the names and more already (and from more reliable sources than those who regularly report various Iranian commander being killed here or there, only for their reports to prove totally false).

But it is possible that the Konarak had some officers not part of its regular crew (not so senior, but mid-ranking, theater level, officers and affiliated personnel ) to observe the drill . While I have not heard anything to support such a thing from any reliable source, that is not something I could rule out a priori. Except that would not be very likely, as I would expect even greater precautions in such a case before a missile is fired.

 

IDK, like I said, it was posted on Twitter, which is occasionally right about breaking news but oftentimes wrong. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iran/hendijan.htm lists the crew of the Konorak's class of ships as 15, so obviously something else was going on there to leave more than twice that number dead / wounded.

 

Never mind tweets and social media, which are often ridiculous in what they post. I think you rely too much even on global security, even though they are sometimes right and do have good information about non-Iranian weapons and equipment but no really reliable knowledge about Iranian ones (which they seem to try to compensate by making everything in Iran fit some foreign weapon to allow them to then pontificate about its capabilities).

As for the Konorak, it is true: the vessel does typically have a crew of 15-20, which does leave the question I also posited about the number of casualties from this incident. My own theory is that most of the injuries (as opposed to deaths) were from rescue operations, especially since the injured mostly (other than 2 of them) suffered from light injuries. In other words, I believe the crew of the Konarak suffered catastrophic losses, almost all of them dying, while the injured were mostly from other vessels.

 

Speaking of which, it seems that this tweet:

was just recycling footage from a Norwegian Joint Strike Missile test from 2013.

I'd like to also add that I'm not "relying" on them. I recognize the spotty accuracy of things posted on Twitter, which is why I'll oftentimes caveat posts from there with things like "or at least it's being reported as such".

 

Much of what is posted about Iran by the usual suspects on social media, including in tweets by sources such as "Al Araby" end up being fake. Thanks for letting me know this one fits that pattern.

Iran hasn't released any video footage of the incident itself (I wouldn't expect it to do so either), but we do have pictures showing a heavily damaged Konarak being towed. In the meantime, Iran has released a full list of the 19 people who died from the incident HERE (it is in Farsi, so I don't think you can read the list) along with some photos of those killed. In light of the other rumor you mentioned, let me say that none of them are remotely high ranking officers much less officials. They are junior officers, petty officers and sailors of the kind that would typically serve on a support vessel like this one.

 

Maybe this drill was more important than we suppose. Maybe tests on some new system on their missile and there could have been engineers and techs there to observe.

 

The US will retaliate by destroying known Iranian military sites directly and indirectly related to the attack on the US warship.
Additional attacks on US warships will bring broader and more damaging responses until such a time Iran gets the message.
Iran knows this, and thus will not attack a US warship.