Iranian Guard Holds Anti-Warship Ballistic Missile Drill

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard conducted a drill Saturday launching anti-warship ballistic missiles at a simulated target in the Indian Ocean, state television reported, amid heightened tensions over Tehran’s nuclear program and a US pressure campaign against Tehran.
Footage showed two missiles smash
into a target that Iranian state television described as “hypothetical hostile
enemy ships” at a distance of 1,800 kilometers (1,120 miles). The report did
not specify the type of missiles used.
In the first phase of the drill
Friday, the Guard’s aerospace division launched surface-to-surface ballistic
missiles and drones against “hypothetical enemy bases." Iranian state
television described the drill as taking place in the country’s vast central desert,
the latest in a series of snap exercises called amid the escalating tensions
over its nuclear program. Footage also showed four unmanned, triangle-shaped
drones flying in a tight formation, smashing into targets and exploding.
Tensions between Washington and
Tehran have increased amid a series of incidents stemming from President Donald
Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from Iran's nuclear deal with world powers. Amid
Trump’s final days as president, Tehran has recently seized a South Korean oil
tanker and begun enriching uranium closer to weapons-grade levels, while the US
has sent B-52 bombers, the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and a nuclear submarine
into the region.
In recent weeks, Iran has
increased its military drills as the country tries to pressure President-elect
Joe Biden over the nuclear accord, which he has said America could reenter.
Iran fired cruise missiles
Thursday as part of a naval drill in the Gulf of Oman, state media reported,
under surveillance of what appeared to be a US nuclear submarine. Iran’s navy
did not identify the submarine at the time, but on Saturday, a news website
affiliated with state television said the vessel was American. Helicopter
footage of the exercise released Thursday by Iran’s navy showed what resembled
an Ohio-class guided-missile submarine, the USS Georgia, which the US Navy last
month said had been sent to the Gulf.
Iran has missile capability of up
to 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles), far enough to reach archenemy Israel and US
military bases in the region. Last January, after the US killed top Iranian
general Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad, Tehran retaliated by firing a barrage of
ballistic missiles at two Iraqi bases housing US troops, resulting in brain
concussion injuries to dozens of them.
Trump in 2018 unilaterally
withdrew the US from Iran’s nuclear deal, in which Tehran had agreed to limit
its uranium enrichment in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. Trump
cited Iran’s ballistic missile program among other issues in withdrawing from
the accord.
When the US then increased sanctions, Iran gradually and publicly abandoned the deal’s limits on its nuclear development.