They added that the military exchange lasted only a few minutes before the Iranians headed back eastward to the Iranian coast.

Its "exclusion zone" runs the length of the gulf roughly 40 miles from the Iranian coast.

It was dark along the Iranian coast.

Much better to think about what might have happened out there in the dark of the Iranian coast.

The likely military targets for retaliation are said to be along the Iranian coast.

"The ship would almost certainly hug the Iranian coast," he said.

But here they were now, large as life, making their way up to their close friends on the southernmost Iranian coast.

Sir, as you know, they have a very large petrochemical and oil refinery on the southern Iranian coast.

But the Chinese ship was moving faster, still heading northwest along the Iranian coast.

The tanker route passes for hundreds of miles within sight of the Iranian coast.