Iran shows military muscle in the Strait of Hormuz
Iran has moved a model aircraft carrier into the Straits of Hormuz amid growing tensions between Tehran and the United States, which has denounced the "destructive activities" perpetrated by the Islamic Republic to "destabilize the region". Tehran could use this simulation to conduct live-fire exercises over the next few weeks, as satellite photos released on Monday suggest.
One of the images taken by the Space Technology Corporation (Maxar Technologies) - a US-based company - shows a ship moving towards the US model aircraft carrier located on this strategic waterway, according to information accessed by the digital Al Arab.
The Israeli newspaper Noticias reports that the replica has 16 model fighter planes on its deck and that the ship could be about 200 meters long and 50 meters wide. Tehran - which opposes the presence of the US navy in the Gulf - frequently carries out naval exercises of this type in the Straits of Hormuz. This small strip of sea is a 33-kilometer channel of water that separates two shores: that of the Islamic Republic and the United Arab Emirates and that of the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf. Oil tankers crossing this strait carry one in five barrels of the world's oil.
"We don't know what Iran intends to achieve by using this model of aircraft carrier in training," said Rebecca Ribarric, spokeswoman for the US Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain. "We are confident in our ability to defend ourselves against any naval threat," she added. The assassination of General Soleimani and Tehran's response to it have brought both countries to the brink of conflict. However, this confrontation began much earlier.
In 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump announced Washington's exit from the nuclear pact, signed in 2015 between the United States, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, Germany and the Islamic Republic. Following the US decision to withdraw from this agreement, Washington decided to reactivate sanctions against Iran, measures that led to a dramatic drop in Tehran's oil exports.
In April, Iran's Revolutionary Guard threatened to destroy U.S. warships if their security was threatened in the Gulf. The dialectic war between the two countries has had the Strait of Hormuz as its protagonist on repeated occasions, as Tehran has warned that it could close this waterway. In response, the U.S. has been concise in stating that "closing the strait would be a violation of a red line. If so, we in Washington would work towards its reopening," he warned.
On Sunday, the US Secretary of State showed his discontent with the behaviour of the Islamic Republic. In the same line, the special representative of the US for Iran, Brian Hook, warned that if the arms embargo on Teheran is not extended, regional conflicts would be "intensified". "I've spoken to leaders here in the Gulf and around the world - no one believes that Iran should be able to freely buy and sell conventional weapons such as fighter jets ... and various types of missiles," Hook said in statements picked up by the AFP news agency. Mike Pompeo has pledged in recent weeks to do everything possible to extend the UN embargo, which expires in October.
