صراط عشق صراط عشق
The commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy said Saturday his force has furnished its vessels with homegrown naval cruise missiles with a range of 2,000 kilometers, amid efforts by specialists and technicians to develop state-of-the-art munitions and equipment.
Rear Admiral Alireza Tangsiri told Tasnim news agency that the missile, dubbed Qadr-474, has been installed on the indigenous Shahid Mahdavi oceangoing warship.
Built by Iranian experts and technicians, Shahid Mahdavi is a multi-purpose heavy warship for long-range operations. It weighs more than 2,100 tons and is 240 meters in length and 27 meters in width.
The warship is already armed with Abu Mahdi cruise missiles, which feature state-of-the-art technologies suitable for electronic warfare and have a range of over one thousand kilometers, as well as another domestically-developed missile with a range of 750 kilometers.
Abu Mahdi and the other two cruise missiles are smart, can be guided and go after a new target before explosion, and can be launched even from regions deep in the land and behind the mountains to hit naval targets, Tangsiri said.
Tangsiri said the advanced Shahid Soleimani patrol combat warship, named after top Iranian anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, has also been equipped with long-range Qadr-474 cruise missiles.
The warship has been furnished with various types of missiles with ranges of 200, 300 and 750 kilometers, Tangsiri said.
The IRGC Navy will take delivery of four Shahid Soleimani-class vessels in the current Iranian calendar year, which ends on March 20, 2024, he said.
The vessels that would join the IRGC Navy fleet are Shahid Sayyad Shirazi, named after the late former deputy chief of staff of Iran’s Armed Forces, Shahid Bagheri drone aircraft carrier, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis warship.
The last warship has been named after the former deputy head of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units who was assassinated along with Lt. Gen. Soleimani in a U.S. drone strike near Baghdad airport in January 2020.
The new military catamarans can cruise at the speed of 45 nautical knots, and can launch rockets with a range of between 300 and 750 kilometers.
The fourth indigenous warship has been named after Rais Ali Delvari, a great national hero and independence fighter who led the anti-colonial struggle in southern Iran, Tangsiri said.
Iranian military experts and engineers have in recent years made remarkable breakthroughs in manufacturing a broad range of indigenous
equipment, making the armed forces self-sufficient.
Iranian officials have repeatedly underscored that the country will not hesitate to strengthen its military capabilities, including its missile power, which are entirely meant for defense, and that Iran’s defense capabilities will be never subject to negotiations.
On Friday, Admiral Tangsiri said his forces are at their highest level of preparedness and have complete control over the Persian Gulf in the air, surface, and subsurface area.
“The movement of the enemy’s vessels in the Persian Gulf is under constant surveillance of the IRGC Navy,” he told reporters in of Bushehr.
He said the strategic waterway of the Persian Gulf is in full security. “The Navy and Ground Forces of the IRGC and Army, as well as the [IRGC] Aerospace Division, have made great progress.”
Tangsiri said, “With such equipment and capable forces, the preparedness level of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran is increasing day by day.”
The Persian Gulf — spanning some 251,000 square kilometers — is bounded by the Arvand River in the north, which forms the frontier between Iran and Iraq, and the Strait of Hormuz in the south, linking the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and the Indian Ocean.
The strategic inland sea is an international trade route connecting the Middle East to Africa, India, and China.
