Britain’s crisis with Iran deepened last night after Tehran justified seizing 15 British servicemen by claiming that they had strayed into Iranian territorial waters “illegally”.

The announcement appeared to rule out any hope that the incident was a simple mistake that could be quickly rectified.

Instead, there were growing fears that the 15 British sailors and Royal Marines were victims of a deliberate ambush on the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway by Iranian Revolutionary Guards, perhaps seeking to use the captives as hostages in the increasingly tense stand-off between the West and Iran over its nuclear programme.

As tensions rose on the Iraqi border, the US House of Representatives set a deadline of August 31 next year for the withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq. In Baghdad, Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister, Salam al-Zubaie, was seriously injured in a suicide attack within his fortified compound.

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The fear must be that the fate of the British servicemen will now be connected to what happens at the UN with regards to the resolution against Iran

Richard Beeston

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Iran blamed Britain for the border incident. “British chargé d’affaires Kate Smith was summoned to the Foreign Ministry to receive a firm protest from Iran against the illegal entry of British sailors into Iranian territorial waters,” said a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tehran.

“This makes a number of times that British sailors have illegally entered Iranian territorial waters at Arvand Roud. They were arrested by border guards for investigation and questioning,” the statement added.

The defiant Iranian message appeared to dismiss earlier appeals by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the Iranian Ambassador in London for the British servicemen to be returned immediately with their equipment.

The incident occurred mid-morning when a boarding party left HMS Cornwall, the flagship of the multinational task force in the northern Gulf, in two small craft to inspect an Iranian merchant ship.

When the inspection was completed the British were surrounded by six larger vessels from a Revolutionary Guards naval unit.

The Iranian ships are normally armed with heavy mounted machineguns while the British had only side arms to protect themselves. The British personnel were then escorted at gunpoint into Iranian territorial waters, where they have now disappeared.

Commodore Nick Lambert, the commander of HMS Cornwall, said that a helicopter monitored the boats being moved up the Shatt al-Arab waterway, which demarcates the Iran-Iraq border, towards an Iranian base.

There were hopes that the situation could be resolved as it was in 2004 when eight Royal Marines and sailors were abducted in similar circumstances by the Iranians. The men were paraded on television and made to “apologise” but were eventually freed.

Relations with Britain have since become much more strained. British commanders in southern Iraq have openly accused Iran of arming, training and funding Shia militias responsible for attacks on British forces.

The Iranians are also angered by a build-up of US forces in the region and the arrest and detention of five of their officials in northern Iraq by the US military in January.

There are also fresh tensions over Iran’s nuclear programme. Britain is the co-author of a United Nations Security Council Resolution, due to be voted on today, that would impose sanctions on Tehran.

President Ahmadinejad, the Iranian leader who was due in New York today to debate the motion, abruptly cancelled his visit last night, citing delays in obtaining US visas for his entourage.

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