ERBIL, Iraq — After the U.S. conducted strikes against its allies in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, Iran has issued a clear warning not to target a ship that U.S. officials and experts suspect of providing real-time intelligence for attacks on other vessels in the Red Sea and serving as a forward operating base for its commandos. A video published on the Iranian Army’s Telegram channel on Sunday presented a stern message that those engaging in terrorist activities against the MV Behshad or similar vessels risk jeopardizing international maritime routes, security, and assuming global responsibility for potential future international risks. The video describes the Behshad as a “floating armory” involved in missions to counteract piracy in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, but Iran is not publicly known to have taken part in any recent anti-piracy campaigns in the region. It ends with footage of what appears to be ships in an American carrier group flashing red as though they are being targeted. Asked by NBC News about the ship, Defense Department press secretary Gen. Patrick Ryder said, “I am not aware of the U.S. targeting the Behshad. We are very well aware of the ship.” The Behshad is registered as a commercial cargo ship with a Tehran-based company that the U.S. Treasury has sanctioned as allegedly being a front for the state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines. According to a U.S. official, a U.S. congressional aide, and a Middle Eastern official, the Iranian ship provides electronic intelligence to the Houthis, allowing them to spot and target vessels in the Red Sea region. Rear Adm. Marc Miguez, the commander of the Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier strike group currently assigned the task of safeguarding commercial shipping in the Red Sea, told NBC News that Houthi forces are receiving help from Iran to strike at cargo vessels, although he did not directly mention the Behshad. Several military analysts, including Michael Knights of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, have reported that the Behshad and its sister vessel Safiz are loaded with Iranian electronic intelligence equipment used to locate target vessels for the Houthis to strike. NBC News has been monitoring the vessel using shipping tracking data and found that it has lingered in the same spot in the south of the Red Sea between Yemen and Eritrea since January 2023. After raising anchor on Jan. 4 this year, it sailed south toward the Gulf of Aden. And since Jan. 11 it has moved around the Bab al-Mandeb strait, a 16-mile stretch of water that is the entrance to the Red Sea and a choke point where it would be easy to monitor traffic passing into and out of the waterway. The Behshad was several miles away as Houthi rebels carried out a number of attacks on commercial vessels. These attacks have caused a significant wave of ship diversions since December and delays in the global supply chain. “It’s a sort of open secret within government circles that this ship is causing us quite significant problems,” said Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based think tank. “Wherever the Behshad goes happens to be more or less where the Houthis happen to be targeting their anti-ship ballistic missiles, suicide drones and suicide boats,” he added. Releasing a video about the ship was a first for the Iranians, according to Ali Vaez, the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, a Belgian think tank focused on preventing wars. “I don’t recall seeing anything like this before,” he said, adding that he thought “Iran has seen the writing on the wall, that this could be a potential target for future U.S. military action.”National security adviser Jake Sullivan refused to rule out strikes inside Iran after the retaliatory attacks on the country’s proxies in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen over the killing of three American service members in Jordan last month. During an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Sullivan told moderator Kristen Welker that he was “not going to get into what we’ve ruled in and ruled out from the point of view of military action. “What I will say is that the president is determined to respond forcefully to attacks on our people. The president also is not looking for a wider war in the Middle East,” he said. Although the Biden administration has vowed to damage the Houthis’ ability to carry out drone and missile attacks against commercial cargo vessels and U.S. ships in the Red Sea, it has so far chosen not to target the Behshad, possibly out of concern it could trigger a direct conflict with Iran. Attacking any Iranian vessel would nonetheless be “extremely dangerous in terms of escalation,” according to Basil Germond, a seapower and maritime expert at Britain’s Lancaster University. A ship is an extension of a state’s sovereign territory, so an attack on an Iranian ship would technically be a direct attack on Iran, he said.
