2007 Iranian arrest of Royal Navy personnel
On 23 March 2007, fifteen Royal Navy personnel from HMS Cornwall were searching a merchant vessel when they were surrounded by the Navy of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and detained off the Iran–Iraq coast. In the course of events, British forces claimed that the vessel was in Iraqi waters, but the Iranians insisted that they were in Iran's territorial waters. The fifteen personnel were released thirteen days later on 4 April 2007.
RHIB from HMS Cardiff, intercepting a cargo vessel off Iraq in 2002. Similar to those embarked on Cornwall.
British sailors before being released
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy is the naval warfare service of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps founded in 1985, and one of the two maritime forces of Iran, parallel to the conventional Islamic Republic of Iran Navy. The IRGC has been designated as a terrorist organization by the governments of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United States.
IRGC's Navy has steadily improved its capabilities to support unconventional warfare and defend Iran's offshore facilities, coastlines, and islands in the Persian Gulf.
IRGC speedboats in the Shahadat Maritime Manoeuvre (1987)
Shahid Soleymani corvette
Shahid Shafiei (P313-3)
Azarakhsh (142), firing a missile