Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Iran claims to have test fired missile

Iran claimed on Monday that it had successfully test fired the latest version of a submarine-launched cruise missile.

According to the IRNA news agency, the missile, named “Nasir”, was tested during an Iranian naval drill in the Persian Gulf.

“During the military drills in the Iranian territorial waters in the south, the new model of the SLCM named Nasir was test-fired and successfully hit its target,” Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan said, according to the report.

Iran's navy on Sunday began its annual drill near the Strait of Hormuz, its first major exercise since the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

The naval drill comes amid recent tensions between Iran and the United States. Last month, a U.S. Navy ship fired warning shots at Iranian boats near the Strait of Hormuz, after five Iranian vessels approached the USS Mahan and two other American ships that were entering the strait.

In September, the U.S. Navy said that Iran had threatened two American maritime patrol aircraft flying over the Strait of Hormuz.

In addition to the tensions in the Gulf, Iran has escalated its rhetoric against the United States, after The Trump administration imposed new sanctions on the Islamic Republic in response to a ballistic missile test it conducted in violation of UN Resolution 2231.

Iran has responded angrily to the sanctions, with the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, dismissing calls from the Trump administration to cease the country’s ballistic missile tests.