Iran Ups the Rhetoric on Seized Sailors

Commodore Nick Lambert, commander of the Royal Navy frigate HMS Cornwall, speaks aboard his ship Friday March 23, 2007in this image made from television. Iranian naval vessels seized 15 British sailors from HMS Cornwall, who had boarded a merchant ship in Iraqi waters of the Persian Gulf as part of efforts to protect the Iraqi coastline and its oil terminals, U.S. and British officials Friday March 23, 2007. The British government summoned the Iranian ambassador in London and demanded "the immediate and safe return of our people and equipment." The U.S. Navy, which operates off the Iraqi coast along with British forces, said Iran's Revolutionary Guard naval forces were responsible.(AP Photo/AP Television News) (AP)

Iraq's military commander of the country's territorial waters, Brig. Gen. Hakim Jassim, told AP Television News that Iraqi fishermen had reported that the British boats were "in an area that is out of Iraqi control."

In June 2004, six British marines and two sailors were captured, then paraded blindfolded on Iranian television. They admitted they had entered Iranian waters illegally but were released unharmed after three days.

Iranian hard-liners have already called for the 15 Britons to be held until Iran wins concessions from the West.

Several conservative student groups urged the Iranian government not to release the sailors until five Iranians detained by U.S. forces in Iraq earlier this year are freed and U.N.'s new sanctions against Iran are canceled. Some 500 Iranian students gathered on the shore near where the soldiers were captured, shouting "Death to Britain" and "Death to America," the semiofficial Fars news agency reported.

With tensions already running high, the United States has bolstered its naval forces in the Persian Gulf in a show of strength directed at Iran. There is concern that with so much military hardware in the Gulf, a small incident could escalate dangerously.

Afshar, the Iranian officer, warned the United States would not be able to control the consequences if it attacks Iran.

"The United States and its allies know that if they make any mistake in their calculations ... they will not be able to control the dimensions and limit the duration of a war," Afshar said.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader,warned this week that Western countries "must know that the Iranian nation and authorities will use all their capacities to strike enemies that attack."

The Britons were seized in an area where the boundaries of Iraqi and Iranian waters have long been disputed. A 1975 treaty set the center of the Shatt al-Arab _ the 125-mile-long channel known in Iran as the Arvand River _ as the border.

But Saddam Hussein canceled that treaty five years later and invaded Iran, triggering an eight-year war. Virtually all of Iraq's oil is exported through an oil terminal near the mouth of the channel.

Iran and the new Iraqi government have not signed a new treaty on their sovereignty over the waterway.

The seized sailors, from the British frigate HMS Cornwall, are part of a task force that maintains security in Iraqi waters under authority of the U.N. Security Council. Cornwall's commander, Commodore Nick Lambert, said he hoped the detention was a "simple mistake" stemming from the unclear border.

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Associated Press Writer Thomas Wagner contributed to this report from London.