IRGC rebuts rocket test near USA warships

News, citing unnamed USA military officials, said the Guards were conducting a live-fire exercise and the United States aircraft-carrier Harry S. Truman came within about 1,500 yards (meters) of a rocket as it entered the Gulf with other warships.

“The publication of such false news under the current conditions is more of a psychological warfare and questionable”, Sharif said.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Thursday denied its naval forces test-fired rockets close to a U.S. aircraft carrier in the strategically important Strait of Hormuz.

The implausibility of this claim is underscored by the fact that Voice of America News and various other outlets have indicated that the test was witnessed by a French frigate and a number of commercial vessels, as well as by the American aircraft carrier and two American destroyers.

Tabnak said that Western news reports about the episode were an attempt to “undermine Iran’s capability to provide regional marine safety”.

The mooted financial penalties on companies and individuals in Iran, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates, for apparent links to Tehran’s missile programme, highlighted worsening US-Iran relations.

The U.S. and France said the October launch violated a U.N. Security Council resolution banning Iranian development of a ballistic missile.

Iran’s “actions were highly provocative”, Raines said.

“The noteworthy thing waterway has seen past U.S.-Iran confrontations”.

On Thursday, foreign ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari said Iran would “respond to any interventionist measure by the USA against its defense”, which has “no connection” to the nuclear deal.

Separately on Tuesday, Navy Commander Kyle Raines, spokesman for US Central Command, told Reuters that the Iranians only gave nearby traffic 23 minutes advanced warning before firing the rockets from an attack craft in Omani waters.

The deal reached with moderate President Hassan Rouhani’s administration has been panned by Iranian hard-liners, and in the months since, Iran has conducted missile tests criticized by the USA, as well as aired footage on state television of an underground missile base. The shoot-down of the jet came shortly after the USA vessel reported coming under fire from Iranian speedboats.

Back in May, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei underlined that security of the Persian Gulf region comes within the purview of the regional countries alone, and dismissed the USA claim of seeking security in the region.