Iran’s Revolutionary Guards begin military drills in Strait of Hormuz

TEHRAN: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Monday began a series of military exercises in the Strait of Hormuz, state media reported, on the eve of talks with the United States.

The war games, the duration of which was not specified, aim to prepare the Guards for “potential security and military threats” in the strait, state TV said, after the United States deployed a large naval force to the area.

Iranian hardline politicians have repeatedly threatened to block the strait, especially during times of heightened tensions with the United States, but it has never been closed.

Around a quarter of all seaborne oil and a fifth of the world’s liquified natural gas transit through the strait, according to the International Energy Agency.

The exercises, overseen by Guards chief General Mohammad Pakpour, aim to bolster the IRGC’s ability to react quickly, Iranian media reported. The Guards are the ideological arm of Iran’s military.

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The Guards initiated the drills from Abu Musa Island – Iran’s southernmost territorial point – with Pakpour saying forces built “a strong fortress all around the island,” according to state television.

The report said island-based units in the Gulf can act without mainland support, with missiles able to “destroy enemy destroyers within a radius of 1,000 kilometres.”

It also showed a blurred video of a drone, but avoided giving operational details, which remained classified.

The drills were taking place as Tehran and Washington prepared for a new round of talks in Geneva on Tuesday, mediated by Oman. It also comes at a time of heavy US military deployment in the region.

The decades-long adversaries resumed negotiations on February 6 in Oman, their first since diplomacy collapsed last June when Israel sparked a 12-day war with surprise strikes on Iran, which the United States briefly joined to strike Iranian nuclear facilities.

US President Donald Trump has been pressuring Iran to reach an agreement, especially with recent US naval force deployments to the region that he has described as an “armada”.

After sending the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and escort battleships to the Gulf in January, Trump said on Friday that a second supercarrier, the Gerald R. Ford, would depart “very soon” for the Middle East.

On Monday, IRGC navy official Mohammad Akbarzadeh warned that all foreign ships in the region were “under full intelligence surveillance and within the reach of our defence power”.

“The armed forces are fully prepared, monitoring the enemy’s movements and never ignoring threats,” the state-run IRNA news agency reported him saying.