US and UK warships hold sea drone drills in Persian Gulf

American and British naval forces have carried out military and reconnaissance drills in the Persian Gulf involving Saildrone Explorer unmanned vessels, the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet has announced.

Two US and two British warships, as well as three unmanned surface vehicles (USVs), took part in the one-day war games that were held on Friday off the coast of Bahrain, AP reported.

As part of the maneuvers, the USVs captured still images of training targets and forwarded them to both the warships and to the Fifth Fleet’s command center in the Kingdom of Bahrain, the report added, citing a Fifth Fleet spokesman identified as Commander Timothy Hawkins, noting that the photos were then analyzed by artificial intelligence.

The development came after Iran, which considers the presence and activities of US naval forces near its shores as a major security threat, recently captured two Saildrone Explorer USVs in the Red Sea earlier in September and another in the Persian Gulf in August.

“Our goal is a distributed and integrated network of systems operated with our partners to significantly expand how far we can see,” said Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of the US Naval Forces Central Command, US Fifth Fleet and Combined Maritime Forces, as quoted in the report.

Cooper further hailed the results of the war games, boasting that “we have already achieved more today than many might have imagined possible when we started.”

According to the report, “the commercially available Saildrone Explorer drones are wind- and solar-powered and can stay at sea for long periods,” making them “particularly attractive for the US Navy” in monitoring the 8,000-kilometer coastline stretching from the Suez Canal, through the Red Sea into the Sea of Oman and into the Persian Gulf.

Hawkins also emphasized, “No matter what forces you have, you can’t cover all that. You have to do that in a partnered way and an innovative way.” 

The American news agency further highlighted a notice issued by the US Navy this week warning that it will continue to “lawfully operate in international waters and through straits in accordance with internationally recognized rights and freedoms” and that any interference with hardware “will be considered a violation of the norms of international maritime law.”

The US military has resorted to similar statements to justify the provocative maneuvers of its warships far from its borders, particularly in the Pacific and West Asia.

Iran has repeatedly emphasized that Persian Gulf security must be handled by regional states and has warned off or foiled a number of provocative actions and spying missions by US military forces operating in the region.

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