Military
Iran produced at least one of the drones used in the deadly attack on the Mercer Street – a Liberian-flagged oil tanker with ties to Israel – on July 29 and 30, according to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). CENTCOM released the findings of its investigation into the drone attack and published photos…
In late 2020, the Pentagon ramped up aerial and naval deployments around Iran amid military tensions in the Persian Gulf. The new deployments began in late November 2020 and continued through 2022. They included several flights of B-52 or B-1 bombers, a nuclear-powered submarine and a carrier…
During a wargame on July 28, Iran ran a mock attack on a fake U.S. aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fired missiles at a dummy war ship near the Strait of Hormuz. The exercise – dubbed Great Prophet 14 – involved the IRGC’s air force and navy, but…
When did Iran start building a drone fleet?
Iran’s interest in drones and uninhabited vehicles really goes back to the Iran-Iraq war in the mid-1980s. The Iranians have been in the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) business for several decades. The first generation of the Ababil that was used during…
In November 2019, the United States and six other countries—Australia, Bahrain, Britain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—launched Operation Sentinel in the Persian Gulf. Albania and Lithuania joined later, in November 2019 and in March 2020, respectively. Why? What are the…
Iran is among the top four state actors who pose challenges to U.S. security, according to President Obama’s nominees for chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “I would put the threats to this nation in the following order: Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and all of the…
Three top Iranian military commanders have dismissed remarks by U.S. officials who have claimed Washington retains the ability to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. The commander of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Ali Jafari, said Western powers would attack Iran if they…
On April 13, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree lifting a ban on the sale of advanced S-300 air defense missile systems to Iran. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the embargo was no longer necessary given progress in nuclear talks between Iran and the world’s six major…
Iran is developing more advanced rockets and missiles to compensate for shortcomings in its conventional forces, according to a new report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Most of Tehran’s current arsenal suffers from poor accuracy and reliability. But Iran is…
On May 21, Iran and the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency reached an agreement on five additional measures to be implemented by August 25. Tehran committed to providing relevant information on past high explosive experiment and research and development. The new list of measures follows a list…