Iran has “immense naval power” that enables it to project force into the contested waters of the Strait of Hormuz and beyond. That is the unalloyed warning from the commander in chief of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), Major General Hossein Salami, to both the U.S. Navy and the “old fox” British Royal Navy.
Salami said his forces are tasked with “missions on the high seas” while addressing a gathering of IRGC navy commanders in the north-eastern city of Mashhad on August 18, according to the Tasnim news agency.
The general went on to praise his naval forces as an “evolving immense naval power in the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf and beyond,” but did not specify the precise location and other details of the alleged new missions.
Salami also referenced some naval incidents involving IRGC forces in the Persian Gulf waters as symbols of the force’s achievements, including “the arrest of British and American aggressors and the capture of the vessel belonging to the old fox [the UK],” and “and other operations, which remain secret.”
Salami stressed “IRGC forces have brought Israel to its knees in the Persian Gulf, where Iran has imposed its will in the most beautiful manner possible.”
Making threats against its foes and claiming invincibility in battle is nothing new for the leadership of Iran.
Iran General Hossein Salami said he seeks revenge against the U.S. that "will be hard, firm, regrettable, decisive and complete." https://t.co/9xWXPX0JEW
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) January 7, 2020
Iran’s Navy Commander, Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi, last year said no foreign warships would dare enter its territorial waters because of the nation’s seaborne superiority, promising a “grinding response” awaits any intruders that tried.
He pointed to both the UK Royal Navy and U.S. Navy as enemies that will meet a “deadly response” delivered primarily through Iran’s ever expanding flotilla of “offensive” speedboats.
That untested assertion followed a similar boast of military superiority made by Salami who said Iran has such military strength and experience in dynamic modern warfare no enemy can even dream of beating it.
Iran has such military strength and experience in dynamic modern warfare no enemy can even dream of beating it, Major General Hossein Salami, commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, declared Tuesday. https://t.co/Bu3wZ5IOZ8
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) March 30, 2021
Two years before that, Salami declared Iran has special “hidden” military powers it is ready to unleash at any moment on an unsuspecting world.
Iran also warned specially modified ski boats in massed numbers would be enough to swarm an enemy ship as it has tried before, although the U.S. Navy seemed singularly unimpressed at the time:
Unfortunately for Iran, its boasts and claims sometimes fail at the first test.
In 2020 during an Iranian military training exercise, a missile mistakenly sank a naval support vessel near the port of Jask, killing19 sailors and wounding 15, as Breitbart News reported.
Later that year a wooden replica U.S. aircraft carrier attacked by Iran as part of a propaganda exercise capsized in the Strait of Hormuz, blocking a key shipping channel in the process.
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