Tehran, Iran – The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) tested long-range missiles and drones against land and sea targets in Iran’s fourth military demonstration in two weeks amid tension with the United States.
The IRGC fired long-range ballistic missiles on Saturday that traveled 1,800 km (1,118 miles) and hit man-made targets in the northern part of the Indian Ocean.
“The choice of a wide variety of long-range missiles to hit sea targets shows that if the enemies of the Islamic Republic have bad will towards our national interests, sea trade routes or our land, they will be attacked and destroyed by missiles,” said Mohammad Bagheri, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces.
“We have no intention of aggression, but with this exercise we announce that all attackers in our country will be attacked with full force and in the shortest possible time.”
The IRGC Commander in Chief Hossein Salami said Saturday that one of the goals of the elite military organization was to attack “enemy warships” including aircraft carriers.
Iran conducted a ballistic missile and drone military exercise in its central desert [Imamedia via AP]On Friday, the IRGC fired dozens of “next generation” missiles from an undisclosed location in desert areas in central Iran, shown in videos broadcast on state broadcasters, in order to reach their land targets.
“This is the roar of a large number of IRGC ballistic missiles, this time equipped with detachable warheads and capable of being guided outside the Earth’s atmosphere,” said a state broadcaster when a barrage of missiles fired behind him.
Shortly thereafter, the IRGC also tested floating ammunition, or “suicide drones,” which were shown to hit a variety of land targets.
Tensions with the US
The IRGC exercise marks the fourth demonstration by the Iranian Armed Forces in the new year after two months of renewed tension with the outgoing administration of US President Donald Trump on January 3, the anniversary of the assassination of the Iranian Colonel General by the United States.
Qassem Soleimani, who led the IRGC’s overseas operation, was killed in a Trump-ordered drone attack in Baghdad last year.
For the past two months, the US has flown nuclear-grade strategic bombers over the Middle East and deployed an aircraft carrier in the region to “deter” a possible Iranian response.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, on the other hand, has accused the US of trying to “invent a pretext for war”.
The Trump administration has only stepped up its “maximum pressure” campaign, which began in 2018 after the unilateral termination of the Iranian nuclear deal with the world powers in 2015, before President-elect Joe Biden entered the White House on January 20.
The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday announced new sanctions against the Iranian shipping, aerospace and aviation industries.
On Thursday, the second day of a maritime exercise by the Iranian army, workers spotted a foreign submarine that quickly left the scene after receiving warnings and arrested it on camera. The sub appeared to be American.
As part of the exercise, the army added the largest Iranian military ship to its fleet, fired torpedoes from locally manufactured submarines and conducted special forces operations.
On January 8, the IRGC unveiled a huge underground missile base along the Gulf Coast, which it said was one of “many” such bases.
Days earlier, the Iranian army had conducted its first locally made drone exercise in northern Semnan Province, which included air-to-air missile aiming and destruction, land targeting and suicide drone deployment.
“I don’t want to commit a crime”
The Iranian state broadcaster last year broadcast recordings of rockets that were fired for the first time at two US bases in Iraq in response to Soleimani’s murder on Friday evening.
In the footage, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the IRGC’s aerospace division, is shown in an operating room giving orders to fire the missiles that caused damage to U.S. bases, but no fatalities.
“We’ll fire the missiles one at a time so people can escape. We don’t want to commit a crime, ”he said, calling Trump a“ criminal ”.
An interview with Hajizadeh was also recently aired in which 13 rockets were fired at the bases and the US was on high alert but did not know where Iran would strike.
He also said then-Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi had been informed “out of respect” that US targets would be hit by Iranian missiles just half an hour before the strike – without knowing the location.
Hajizadeh claimed Iranian missiles killed an unknown number of US troops. The Americans “brought the dead out of the rubble themselves, but first released the Iraqis from the place.”
“We had 400 missiles prepared just for those first few moments,” he said of Iran’s expectation of possible US reprisals. Iran could cause “irreparable damage” to all US bases in the region by simultaneously firing 500 missiles.
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