US-led drill in Persian Gulf provocative, counterproductive: Analyst

The United States and its allies began the first phase of the joint military exercise, the so-called International Mine Countermeasures Exercise, in the Persian Gulf on May 6."

A political analyst says the US-led naval exercises involving 41 countries in the Persian Gulf are a “provocative” move, Press TV reports.

“I think that the maneuvers themselves, when you get this amount of firepower directed at any particular part of the world, become somewhat provocative,” William Jones with the US-based news magazine Executive Intelligence Review told Press TV on Monday.

Jones further noted that the US-led military drill, currently under way in the “sensitive” waters of the Persian Gulf, would prove counterproductive.

“The worst thing that this situation creates is that once you get this many military forces together in a region like the Persian Gulf, something can happen, something unexpected, something that you did not want to happen and that can lead to unintended consequences,” he stated.

The United States and its allies began the first phase of the joint military exercise, dubbed International Mine Countermeasures Exercise, in the Persian Gulf on May 6. The second phase of the drill kicked off on May 13 and will continue for two weeks.

The drill is hosted by the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and includes oil spill response, shipping escort, and protecting offshore terminals, in addition to minesweeping and flying drones.

The three-phase drills involve 35 ships, 18 Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) and more than 100 Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) divers, according to the US Navy.