Iran Holds Its Largest Naval Drills In Persian Gulf

By Arsalan Shahla

Sep 21, 2024(Bloomberg) –Iran’s army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps conducted their largest joint naval exercises to date in the country’s southern waters, according to state television.

Saturday’s drills featured a fleet of 580 vessels, including ocean-going warships and destroyers, navigating the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. The display was part of a week-long series of events commemorating the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

The naval exercises also took place a day after a senior commander of Hezbollah, Iran’s key regional ally, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut. The incident followed earlier deadly explosions in Lebanon involving pagers and walkie-talkies, which are widely used by Hezbollah members.

Iran showcased an array of military hardware during nationwide parades on Saturday, including what state media described as a new advanced ballistic missile with a range of 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) that can evade any existing anti-missile defense systems.

Iran and Hezbollah have accused Israel of orchestrating the blasts in Lebanon, which claimed dozens of lives and wounded more than 2,900 people, including Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.

Tehran has been contemplating its own retaliatory measures against Israel since July, when it accused Israel of assassinating a senior Hamas official in the Iranian capital.