[CNN] The United States has video and photos that show an Iranian navy boat removing an unwent kaboom! mine attached to the hull of the Japanese-owned chemical tanker Kokura Courageous, four US officials tell CNN.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday blamed Iran
 ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan, the abbreviation IRGC is a cognate form of Stürmabteilung (or SA), the term Supreme Guide is a cognate form of either Shah or Führer or maybe both, and they hate Jews Zionists. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
for an attack on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman, saying the assessment was based on intelligence, but presented no public evidence to support his claim.
The attack comes at a time of high tensions between the US and Iran, and could provide more fodder for Iran hawks within the administration, whose recent Iran saber-rattling has frustrated President Donald Trump
...The tack in the backside of the Democratic Party...
. One of them, national security adviser John Bolton, announced last month that the Pentagon was deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force to the Middle East in response to a "number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings" from Iran.
One of the officials said a US military aircraft overhead recorded a full motion video of an Iranian boat moving alongside one of the stricken tankers and removing an ununexploded limpet mine from its hull. The official said the imagery shows a person on board that small boat grabbing the unexploded mine.
The boat made the move even after the USS Bainbridge, as well as a US drone and P-8 aircraft, had been on the scene for four hours. US defense officials believe that the Iranians were seeking to recover evidence of their involvement in the attack.
CNN has not independently seen the video. The officials described the photos and video to CNN on the condition they not be identified discussing sensitive military information. It is not clear if the imagery will be publicly shown.
Another of the officials tells CNN that multiple Iranian small boats have entered the area where the USS Bainbridge continues to be on the scene, prompting US Central Command to issue a statement saying, "No interference with USS Bainbridge, or its mission, will be tolerated."
Earlier Thursday, the two tankers -- one carrying oil and the other transporting chemicals -- were apparently attacked in international waters near the strategically important Strait of Hormuz. All crew members were evacuated and were safe, according to the owners of the two ships.
The vessels were hit "at or below the waterline, in close proximity to the engine room," said the International Association of Independent Tanker Owners (Intertanko).
"These appeared to be well-planned and coordinated" attacks, the association said..
Jonathan Cohen, acting US ambassador to the United Nations
...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society...
, said Thursday that he echoed Pompeo's comments in a private meeting of the UN Security Council, describing the attack as "another example of Iran's destabilizing activities in the region."
The Iranian mission to the UN rejected the US' claim.
Alireza Miryousefi, a front man for the Iranian mission, tweeted a statement saying Iran "categorically rejects the US unfounded claim" that Iran is behind the attacks and "condemns it in the strongest possible terms."
He added that Iran "expresses concern" over the "suspicious incidents." And he called it "ironic" that the US, which withdrew from the nuclear deal with Iran, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, is now calling Iran to come back for negotiations and diplomacy.
Following the attack, Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said "suspicious doesn't begin to describe" this latest incident, noting that one of the tankers is Japanese owned and the attack took place as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was visiting Iran in an effort to calm tensions between Washington and Tehran.
"Reported attacks on Japan-related tankers occurred while PM was meeting with Ayatollah [Ali Khamenei] for extensive and friendly talks. Suspicious doesn't begin to describe what likely transpired this morning," Zarif tweeted Thursday.
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