Iranian Navy Drills Exercises, Warns the US

Iranian forces will hold 20 special exercises in the current year, Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Seyyari says.

“The Iranian Navy will have 20 specialized missile, subsurface, intelligence, etc. drills and these series of wargames will start next month with an electronic warfare exercise,” and he added the massive Velayat 95 drills will most likely be conducted next February, Fars News Agency reports.

He also criticized the role of the US in the region, “Although they aren’t interested in our military might, they should know that we are deployed in this region with all our power and stage our wargames here and this issue is no way related to them.”

Fars News Agency reported that Iranian Navy’s 40th fleet of warships, comprising Alborz and Tonb warships, are now ready in the Gulf of Aden to protect the country’s cargo ships and oil tankers from pirate attacks.

Velayat exercise is an annual event and all shipping lines and naval vessels in the region are informed of the area of the drills according to international maritime and naval standards that require all foreign ships and vessels to keep some 5 nautical miles away from the wargames zone.

During the war games in March, the US Navy warship received a serious warning from several Iranian destroyers to keep away from their drill zone near the Strait of Hormuz, an incident that could keep frictions high after Iran captured 10 US marines in the Persian Gulf in the same month.