Beirut: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard launched a new 55-metre-long naval ship on Tuesday that is capable of transporting a helicopter and up to 100 men, according to the website of the state TV.
The ship’s launch in the port city of Bushehr comes at a time of high tension between Iran and the United States over Gulf waters. US officials say there have been more than 30 close encounters between US and Iranian vessels in the Gulf so far this year, over twice as many as in the same period of 2015.
The TV showed a catamaran-type ship described as 55 metres’ long and 14 metres’ wide, carrying a light civilian helicopter, while the official IRNA news agency said it can travel up 28 knots per hour.
In August, a US Navy ship fired three warning shots in the direction of an Iranian boat that was approaching another American ship head-on in the North Arabian Gulf. It was the third incident that day, and came just a day after four small Iranian boats approached the USS Nitze at high speed in the Strait of Hormuz. The boats veered off after the US fired flares.
At the time, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted General Hussain Dehghan as saying that “if any foreign vessel enters our waters, we warn them, and if it’s an invasion, we confront”. He added that Iranian boats patrol to monitor traffic and foreign vessels in its territorial waters.
On September 4, a US Navy coastal patrol ship changed course after an Iranian Revolutionary Guard fast-attack craft came within 91 metres of it in the central Gulf, at least the fourth such incident in less than a month.
“This ship increases the deterrent power of Iran and will have an effect on the calculations of the enemy, particularly America,” Revolutionary Guard naval chief Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi said at the launch, according to the state TV site.
Fadavi did not say whether the ship was equipped with any weapons capabilities. A photo posted on the state TV site showed a helicopter sitting on the top deck of the ship.
The ship was built in Bushehr by Khatam Al Anbia, a huge construction and engineering firm overseen by the Guards, Fadavi said.
The vessel was painted with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s call for US forces to “Go back to the Bay of Pigs”. In May, Khamenei criticised the US presence in the Gulf region in an apparent reference to the 1961 failed invasion of Cuba’s Bay of Pigs by 1,500 CIA-trained exiles.
During Tuesday’s inauguration ceremony, Fadavi denounced American presence in the Gulf, saying it “is a cause of insecurity and lawlessness”.
“The speedboat will add to Iran’s deterrence (ability),” said Admiral Ali Razmjou, the commander of the Guard’s 2nd Navy Fleet.
In January, Iran briefly detained 10 US Navy sailors who mistakenly steered into Iranian waters.
In comments to the semi-official ISNA news agency, government spokesman Mohammad Bagher Nobakht on Tuesday appeared to downplay the military encounters in the Gulf, suggesting it was part of the navy’s duties.
“Our border guards are always ready to come upon any offender,” he said. “It is the country’s strong point.”
