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US: Iran “Unsafe & Unprofessional” After Laser-Tagging of Helicopter
The Supreme Leader’s senior military advisor has issued Iran’s latest warning to the US, saying American bases in the region are vulnerable to Iranian missiles.
“Should the US seek to launch a war against Iran, all of US military bases in the region would become insecure,” Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi (pictured) said on Wednesday.
The advisor claimed Iran has missiles that have a range of up to 2,000 km (1,240 miles).
The Iranian regime has stepped up its challenging rhetoric since Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia in late May and announced the sale of $110 billion of US arms to Riyadh. The Islamic Republic’s military and the Supreme Leader have declared a US-Saudi-Israeli alliance behind “terrorism”, including the Islamic State.
Iran’s concerns have been raised further by last week’s ISIS attacks in Tehran — blamed on the Saudis and the US — and the move towards additional sanctions by the US Senate. The rationale for the Senate’s measures, likely to reach a vote by next week, is in part the missiles about which Rahim Safavi boasted yesterday.
Echoing the Supreme Leader’s assurance of Iranian superiority over any American threat, Rahim Safavi asserted:
Despite claims of being a superpower, deployment of warships and expansion of military bases across the globe, the power of the US is vanishing, proof of which is its incapability to put an end to the Syrian conflict and get its own way in that country.
US: Iran “Unsafe & Unprofessional” After Laser-Tagging of Helicopter
The US military has called the Iranian military “unsafe and unprofessional” after a vessel trained a laser on a US helicopter in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday.
Three US ships and the Marine Corps CH-53E helicopter were confronted by the Iranian missile boat in international water, according to the statement. The Iranians came within 800 yards of the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan, training a spotlight on it and the guided-missile destroyer USS Cole. After detecting the laser, the US helicopter the helicopter fired flares as part of automatic defensive measures.
The US and Iranian militaries have had dozens of encounters in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, although the American military says the number has decreased sharply since the first half of 2016.
