Was Iran justified in capturing the British sailors?

Answer 1

Or were they justified in breaking the Geneva convention and parading them on TV in front of the whole world? And were they justified in coercing and coaching their on-camera speeches? Were they justified in draping a scarf on the head of the woman?

And were they justified in all the other thousand hostages that they've taken since the reign of Ayatollah Khomeini?

Answer 2

A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that 10 weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and Marines.

Early on the morning of 11 January, helicopter-born US forces launched a surprise raid on a long-established Iranian liaison office in the city of Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. They captured five relatively junior Iranian officials whom the US accuses of being intelligence agents and still holds.

In reality the US attack had a far more ambitious objective, The Independent has learned. The aim of the raid, launched without informing the Kurdish authorities, was to seize two men at the very heart of the Iranian security establishment.

Answer 3

No
http://www.trans-int.com/news/archives/114-Are-500,000-Keys-to-Paradise-Enough-Germany.html

Are 500,000 Keys to Paradise Enough?: Germany "Confronts" Ahmadinejad
BY Matthias Küntzel

In pondering the behavior of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, I cannot help but think of the 500,000 plastic keys that Iran imported from Taiwan during the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88. At the time, an Iranian law laid down that children as young as 12 could be used to clear mine fields. Before every mission, a plastic key would be hung around each of the children’s necks. It was supposed to open for them the gates to paradise.



The “child-martyrs” belonged to the so-called “Basij” movement created by the Ayatollah Khomeini.

Answer 4

Iran's claim is that the British vessel was in Iranian waters--a claim the British deny.

If the Iraninan claim is correct, they are justified under international law. Personally, though, I believe the Brits unless and until Iran presents proof. Unlikely--if they could proove it, they already would have.

Answer 5

No, and it wasn't a very smart thing to do - they already have poor relations with the West. Capturing sailors that are going about thier jobs not bothering Iranian ships or ports isn't a good way to furthur diplomacy.

Answer 6

Did the British pose a threat to Iranian national security? I mean, 14 men and one woman on rubber boats? It was simply payback for the US taking the Iranians as the others are mentioning above.

Answer 7

Justice is a hard be conscious. Justice might desire to be served. Justice might desire to get carry of to those who deserve it. yet IRAN is a little greater complicated. ordinary opinion, united kingdom bombs IRAN, there's a brilliant death. Then IRAN says the two we killed them, or greater politically risk-free, "some enthusiasts" stole them and beheaded them, please end making our human beings go through for the movements of a few. the united kingdom will look like the undesirable adult males, and the killing will cement hatred into the minds of Iranians in direction of the west. regrettably, we can basically wish that IRAN shall we the Britons pass, because of the fact killing Iranians won't help...

Answer 8

I don't think anyone will ever no the answer to that question because he borders between Iraq & Iran are such a mess nobody knows where they are including the Iraqis, Iranians, British & US.

Answer 9

Nope.

They are just the "annoying little brother" looking to piss off the others of the world, and are doing it however they can.

Funny that if those sailors broke the law, they are releasing a criminal as opposed to trying all of them for their crimes. That is something one does in a HOSTAGE situation to show "good will".

Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Answer 10

I believe that the Britons were captured in IRAQI waters that they had been there legally and that the reason Iran captured them was to use them as bargaining chips. I think Iran's leaders believed it was justified.

Under the mandate of the UNSC Resolution 1723, the British team had been conducting a compliance inspection of a suspicious Iraqi merchant ship. The intercepted British crew being ambushed and surrounded by IRGC surrendered without a fight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_1723

The British sailors and marines being held by Iran were ambushed at their most vulnerable moment, while climbing down the ladder of a merchant ship and trying to get into their bobbing inflatables. It took only three minutes for the Iranians, moving at 40 knots, to move from their legitimate positions monitoring shipping in their waters to come alongside the British
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article1582544.ece

Iran justifies arresting the British crew because the U.S.arrested five members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Erbil in Northern Iraq on January 11.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1604546,00.html

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/015783.php
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article1530527.ece
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070331/ap_on_re_eu/british_seized_iran_226
Various news media reported....
Fifteen British sailors taken at gunpoint Friday by Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Al Quds soldiers were captured intentionally and are to be used as bargaining chips to be used for the release of five Iranians who were arrested at the Iranian consul in Irbil, Iraq by US troops, an Iranian official told the daily paper Asharq al-Awsat on Saturday.
In addition, a senior Iranian military official said Saturday that the decision to capture the soldiers was made during a March 18 emergency meeting of the High Council for Security following a report by the Al-Quds contingent commander, Kassem Suleimani, to the Iranian chief of the armed forces, Maj.Gen. Hassan Firouz Abadi. In the report, according to Asharq al-Awsat, Suleimani warned Abadi that Al Quds and Revolutionary Guards' operations had become transparent to US and British intelligence following the arrest of a senior Al Quds officer and four of his deputies in Irbil.

The first sign of a possible campaign against high-ranking Iranian officers emerged earlier this month with the discovery that Ali Reza Asgari, former commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force in Lebanon and deputy defence minister, had vanished, apparently during a trip to Istanbul.

Asgari’s disappearance shocked the Iranian regime as he is believed to possess some of its most closely guarded secrets. The Quds Force is responsible for operations outside Iran.

Last week it was revealed that Colonel Amir Muhammed Shirazi, another high-ranking Revolutionary Guard officer, had disappeared, probably in Iraq.

A third Iranian general is also understood to be missing — the head of the Revolutionary Guard in the Persian Gulf. Sources named him as Brigadier General Muhammed Soltani.