In His Own Words: Captured Marine Says We Were Gathering Iran Intelligence - Transcript

In His Own Words

Updated: 17:22, Thursday April 05, 2007

Captain Chris Air of the Royal Marines revealed to Sky News that he and his colleagues had been gathering intelligence on the Iranians.

Here follows the full transcript of that interview.

Captain Air: "This is what's called an IPAT - an Interaction patrol whereby we come alongside or even board the fishing Dhows and basically interact with the crew.

"It's partly a hearts-and-minds type patrol, whereby we'll come along and speak to the crew, find out if they have any problems and just sort of introduce ourselves, let them know we're here to protect them, protect their fishing and stop any terrorism and piracy in the area.

"Secondly it's to gather int (Intelligence). If they do have any information because they're here for days at a time, they can share it with us whether it's about piracy or any sort of Iranian activity in the area because obviously we're right by the buffer zone with Iran


Jonathan Samuels "This Dhow had been robbed by some Iranian soldiers about 3 days ago, they had some money taken off them and apparently it's happened quite a lot of times in the past so it's good to gather int on the Iranians."

Sky Correspondent Jonathan Samuels: Is the captain happy to talk to you?

"Yes he is yeah. They're generally very compliant and friendly. We have a translator onboard who's a great help - sort of helps to break the ice - and we're obviously learning Arabic as well.

"It's good to help them just get relaxed and it's a very friendly and de-escalatory approach we adopt."

JS - Any dangers?
"At the moment we haven't encountered anyone who's been anything other than compliant (interrupted).

"We are capable of doing non-compliant boardings as well, however I think they'd be a bit stupid to start being aggresive with us because obviously we've got seven armed Marines and generally that's not a problem with us coming aboard because they understand we're here to help them at the end of the day."

JS - Any real risks?

"There can be yes, and we're not complacent about what we do so we make sure that we do take all the necessary security measure before we go jumping on a Dhow. We'll assess the situation and make sure it's secure before we come aboard."