Iran announced that Shahid Mahdavi, an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) warship, crossed the equator into the Southern Hemisphere for the first time.
The Shahid Mahdavi is on a “long-distance mission” in international waters, the Iranian state-owned PressTV propaganda outlet reported.
The Shahid Mahdavi is a more than 2.1-ton and roughly 787-foot long container ship that the IRGC, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization and formal arm of the Iranian military, converted into a multi-purpose warship capable of carrying helicopters, unmanned aerial drones, and speedboats.
According to Iranian state media, the Shahid Mahdavi is equipped with a three-dimensional phased array radar, sea-to-sea and sea-to-air missiles, and advanced communication systems for electronic warfare. The ship was commissioned into the IRGC Navy in March 2023.
Iranian state media claimed that the warship was “conducting its biggest mission in terms of distance and operation,” without specifying further. Iranian authorities have not publicly disclosed the nature of the warship’s mission at press time.
The deployment of the warship was accompanied by a video that Iranian authorities released on social media to demonstrate the vessel’s capabilities, allegedly showing it launching a Dezful-class ballistic missile capable of striking targets up to 620 miles away.
Iran's IRGC Navy floating base Shahid Mahdavi used as mobile platform at sea to launch ballistic missiles.
Dezful medium-range ballistic missile launched from 40-foot containers on the deck of the Shahid Mahdavi.
Dezful has a reported range of 1,000 km. pic.twitter.com/BCpq5ktX5g
— Clash Report (@clashreport) May 4, 2024
In February, Iran tested the warship’s missile-launching capabilities by launching a Zolfaqar-class ballistic missile that, according to the Iranian regime, hit its designated target in a desert in central Iran. The Zolfaqar-class missiles reportedly have an approximate range of 1,700 kilometers (1,050 miles).
“Our oceangoing warships can be present in every location across the world, and when we can fire missiles from them, there is, accordingly, no safe spot for anyone intending to create insecurity for us,” IRGC Commander Major General Hossein Salami said during February’s ballistic test.
The deployment of the Shahid Mahdav warship in international waters comes days after the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists of Yemen threatened to “immediately” begin attacking merchant ships traversing the Mediterranean Sea to deliver cargo to Israeli ports. The Houthis have been attacking commercial ships, claiming to target Israel-linked vessels but bombing ships seemingly at random, since late 2023.
Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree stated on Friday that the terrorist group, which is acting in support of the jihadist terrorist organization Hamas, will target “any ships heading to Israeli ports in the Mediterranean Sea in any area we are able to reach.”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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