Iran claims its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) flew a surveillance drone over the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier last week as it transited the Strait of Hormuz, an Iranian news agency said Wednesday.
The move came within hours of IRGC leader, General Hossein Salami, boasting of the “hardness” of Iran’s navy and claiming its combination of drones, helicopters, aircraft stand ready to defeat the “great U.S. satan” at a moment’s notice.
The semi-official Tasnim news agency, which is considered close to the paramilitary Guard, published images of the Nimitz, saying they were taken by Iranian-made drones, and showed fighter planes arrayed on the carrier’s deck.
In 2015 Iran released footage of a mock attack on a Nimitz-lookalike. The target that day was essentially a crewless wooden barge outfitted to look — but not operate — like a lone U.S. carrier devoid of its usual layers of protection:
USS Nimitz (CVN-68) passed through the Strait of Hormuz with the guided-missile cruisers USS Princeton (CG-59) and USS Philippine Sea (CG-58) and guided-missile destroyer USS Sterett (DDG-104).
“The [Carrier Strike Group] will operate and train alongside regional and coalition partners, and provide naval aviation support to Operation Inherent Resolve,” read a statement from 5th Fleet, as reported by USNI News.
Nimitz is the first carrier to operate in the Persian Gulf since USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) made the Strait of Hormuz transit in November.
The last capital ship to sail in the Persian Gulf was USS Bataan (LHD-5) in April.
Operating in the Persian Gulf puts U.S. warships in range of Iranian anti-ship missiles and the fleets of ski boats and assorted leisure craft Iran keeps to deter vessels deemed enemies of the Islamic republic.
Iran has boasted of its abilities to deploy these boats to swarm enemy combatants, and released footage to back its claims of wider naval supremacy.
The U.S. Navy’s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, which oversees patrols across Mideast waters, declined to comment directly on the Iranian report on Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, the Guard took over a delivery of surveillance drones from Iran’s defense industries.
That ceremony sparked Gen. Salami to say the power and hardness of the Guard’s navy stems from its combination use of drones, helicopters, aircraft and its ski boats.
Commander of the IRGC Navy Rear Admiral Alireza Tangsiri has previously warned Iranian sailors are committed to using the watercraft and are “not afraid of death.”
“Everyone is ready to sacrifice his life. We will show this in practice and we will hit the enemy. Today, we announce that wherever the Americans are, we are by their side and they will feel our presence more in the near future,” he added.
AP contributed to this report