US, Egypt dispute Suez Canal shooting
CAIRO (AFP) — US officials on Tuesday denied reports that an Egyptian was killed when a US Navy chartered ship opened fire on small boats near the Suez Canal, confirming the incident but insisting no one was hurt.
Egyptian accounts however said one man was shot dead and two other people injured on Monday when the US ship fired on barges which approached the vessel wanting to sell merchandise.
The Global Patriot "fired warning shots at a small boat approaching the ship as it was preparing to transit the Suez Canal Monday evening," a statement from the US embassy in Cairo said.
"Initial reports from the Global Patriot indicate that no casualties were sustained on either vessel."
US Ambassador to Cairo Francis Ricciardone expressed regret over the incident but said the facts needed clarification.
"We regret if there are victims but we have to know what really happened from both sides," Ricciardone told a meeting of businessmen in Cairo.
US warships in the Middle East have previously been harassed or attacked by small boats.
Egypt's official MENA news agency said that "an Egyptian citizen was killed and two others injured when a US military vessel opened fire at a small boat," citing preliminary reports.
A medic at Suez hospital who asked not to be named said Mohammed Moqtar Afifi was killed by one bullet. The incident occurred as the Global Patriot was in the Gulf of Suez preparing to sail to the Mediterranean from the Red Sea.
Afifi was buried in a Suez suburb on Tuesday.
The chief of US Navy operations Admiral Gary Roughead said the leader of the US Navy security team had authority to respond and that the incident was under investigation.
He said the navy had no information to support Egyptian allegations that one person was killed and two others injured in the shooting.
"In the judgement of the on scene commander, the responses were such that led to the warning shots. Warning shots were fired," Roughead told reporters in Washington.
He said the navy commonly places security detachments aboard merchant vessels chartered by the US Military Sealift Command to move military cargo around the world.
Despite being protected by the US military, the ship had no obvious military markings, an AFP correspondent said, and on Tuesday was continuing its trip across the Suez Canal.
The embassy said the boats were "warned by a native Arabic speaker using a bullhorn to warn them to turn away. A warning flare was then fired."
"One small boat continued to approach the ship and received two sets of warning shots 20-30 yards (metres) in front of the bow. All shots were accounted for as they entered the water."
The embassy said the US Navy's Fifth Fleet Command, based in Manama, "is cooperating fully with Egyptian authorities, including the Suez Canal Authority and other local authorities."
A Fifth Fleet statement said the Global Patriot "fired warning shots at a small boat approaching the vessel, following multiple warnings to turn away, according to reports from the embarked US Navy security team.
"There were no reports from the Global Patriot of casualties," it said.
"These were tracer bullets, they can actually see the warning shots go out and 20 metres in front of the (Egyptian) ship is quite a way," Fifth Fleet spokesman Lieutenant Nathan Christensen told AFP.
In January, Iranian speedboats approached three US warships in the Strait of Hormuz and the order was given to open fire but they turned away at the last minute, according to US reports.
In 2000, waterborne Al-Qaeda militants carried out a suicide attack on the American warship USS Cole, killing 17 sailors.
According to the website of the US Navy's Military Sealift Command, the MV Global Patriot is a roll-on roll-off transport ship chartered from Global Container Lines.
The Suez Canal, which opened in 1869, is Egypt's third-largest source of revenue after tourism and remittances from expatriate workers and currently about 7.5 percent of global trade passes through the waterway.
It is also a key route for the US military to carry weapons, supplies and troops to and from the Gulf, in particular Kuwait and Iraq.
