Iranian military drill targets mock US carrier

TEHRAN — Iran’s Revolutionary Guard launched large-scale naval and air defense drills near a strategic Gulf waterway on Wednesday in which dozens of speedboats swarmed a replica of a US aircraft carrier.

The drill, named Great Prophet 9, was held near the Strait of Hormuz, through which one fifth of the world’s oil passes.

State TV showed footage of missiles fired from the coast and fast boats striking the mock US aircraft carrier. The drills, which also included shooting down a drone and planting undersea mines, were the first to involve a replica of a US carrier.

“American aircraft carriers are very big ammunition depots housing a lot of missiles, rockets, torpedoes and everything else,” the Guard’s navy chief, Adm. Ali Fadavi, said on state TV, adding that a direct hit by a missile could set off a large secondary explosion. Last month Fadavi said his force is capable of sinking American aircraft carriers in the event of war.

The Guard’s chief commander, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, said the drills send a “message of (Iran’s) might” to “extraterritorial powers,” a reference to the United States.

Cmdr. Kevin Stephens, the spokesman for the US Navy’s 5th Fleet in Bahrain, said the Iranian naval exercises began a few days ago and have had no effect on maritime traffic.

Stephens said the Americans were monitoring the drills, but downplayed the simulated attack on the carrier, saying the US military was “not concerned about this exercise.”

“We’re quite confident of our naval forces’ ability to defend themselves,” he said. “It seems they’ve attempted to destroy the equivalent of a Hollywood movie set.”

The exercises began two days after French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle launched operations in the Gulf as part of the international coalition fighting the Islamic State group (IS) in Iraq and Syria.

The ship will be stationed off Saudi Arabia for about eight weeks, working alongside the American aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson.

A nuclear-powered attack submarine, a French anti-aircraft frigate and a British anti-submarine frigate are also in the area.

Credit to The Times of Israel

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