Iran has staging naval war games in the Strait of Hormuz, including a simulated attack on a mock U.S. aircraft carrier on Wednesday. The fake carrier was destroyed.
The drills were recorded and uploaded to YouTube, as seen below:
Meanwhile, a senior Iranian Navy commander, Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, said Iran can easily sink a U.S. carrier. In the so-called Great Prophet 9 war games, Iranian forces shot “nearly 400 rounds of 107-millimeter missiles strike a huge model of a US aircraft carrier,” showing the capability of the country’s navy, said Press TV.
“Our enemies should rest assured that they will never ever be able to win any possible battle against Iranians … (and) our friends … can use the capabilities of Iran and of the IRGC as a role model,” Fadavi was quoted as saying.
The war games were launched Wednesday. Iran will also launch 20 new missiles in the Persian Gulf.
General Mohammad Ali Jafari said the mock aircraft carrier was built last year to be destroyed.
“The Americans, and the entire world, know that the American Navy is one of our targets, and it will take us 50 seconds to destroy every US warship,” Jafari said, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Other exercises include Iranian gunboats laying sea mines and shooting down a drone. Iranian forces also reportedly fired surface-to-sea missiles.
Cmdr. Kevin Stephens, the spokesman for the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet in Bahrain, said the Americans were monitoring the drills, which had no effect on maritime traffic. He downplayed the simulated attack on the carrier, saying the U.S. 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 U.S. routinely stations at least one aircraft carrier and other warships in and around the Gulf.
It and its allies conduct periodic naval exercises of their own in the region, including ones aimed at countering the threat from undersea mines that could be used to block ship traffic through the strait.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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