US Warship Was in Drill Zone for Reconnaissance, Iran’s Navy Commander Says
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran’s Navy commander said a US warship that was forced to leave the area in which Iran is staging a naval drill had approached the war game zone for reconnaissance.
It was already anticipated that the US warship would approach the war game tactical zone in order to collect data and information about the combat operations carried out by the Iranian forces, Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari said on Wednesday.
He said the Americans were given warnings twice not to approach the drill area, once by a naval patrol aircraft and another time by the Navy’s Alborz destroyer.
The US warship and its accompanying airborne unit heeded the warnings and left the drill zone, where a range of missiles and torpedoes are fired during the exercise, he added.
Some Navy commanders had told Tasnim that the American warship and aircraft began to make “provocative” moves after approaching the war game zone, but had to go away from the area after the Iranian military forces issued a decisive warning.
The main stage of the massive exercise by the Iranian Navy kicked off on Wednesday morning in the country’s southeastern waters, stretching over an area from east of the strategic Strait of Hormuz to the northern parts of the Indian Ocean.
Code-named “Velayat 94”, the naval drill covers an area of around 3 million square kilometers, down to the 10-degrees latitude, north of the Indian Ocean.