Iran navy detains 2 U.S. boats with 10 crew in Gulf

Iran's Revolutionary Guards detained two U.S. boats with 10 crew aboard after the boats entered Iranian territorial waters in the Gulf "illegally," the country's semi-official Fars news agency reported on Wednesday.

The report said the two boats were captured by naval forces of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps near Farsi Island two km inside Iranian territorial waters.

In the United States, media reports that 10 U.S. sailors were detained on Tuesday on the Farsi island in the Gulf by Iran's military, which seized two U.S. Navy boats.

It was unclear whether the U.S. sailors who were aboard one of the small riverine boats had strayed into Iranian territorial waters before they were captured, the NBC News quoted senior Pentagon officials as saying.

The sailors were reportedly on a training mission around noon when their boat experienced "mechanical difficulty" and drifted into Iranian-claimed waters and were seized by Iranian Coast Guard.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has been on the phone with Iranian officials in an attempt to gain the release of the sailors.

One senior U.S. official was quoted as saying that the Iranians understood that it was a mistake and had agreed to release the U.S. personnel in international waters within hours, the report added.