The Iranian army began maneuvers in the southeast of the country near the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, where Tehran reported a recent incident with the United States.
“The exercise of the army of the Islamic Republic of Iran over an area of more than one million square kilometers east of the Strait of Hormuz and the Arabian Sea and north of the ocean Indian has started, “state television reported, broadcasting footage of the maneuvers involving helicopters, tanks, drones, ships and fast boats.
“This exercise is a serious warning to the enemies and to those who have bad intentions towards Iran,” warned maneuver spokesman Admiral Mahmoud Moussavi, quoted by iribnews, the television website.
On Wednesday, the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic, announced that it had recently defeated a US Navy attempt to seize a tanker carrying Iranian oil in the Arabian Sea.
Washington strongly denied this information, saying that US forces simply “observed the situation closely.”
In 2019, mysterious attacks on ships in the Gulf region, a downed drone and seized tankers raised fears of an escalation between Tehran and Washington.
Diplomatic relations between the two countries have been severed since 1980.
Tensions between Iran and the United States have escalated since Washington’s withdrawal in 2018 from a nuclear deal between Tehran and the great powers, followed by the reinstatement of heavy US sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
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