The 11-carrier US Navy is mocking Iran as 'experts' at making a dummy aircraft carrier to shoot at
Sepahnews via AP Photo/Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jacob Estes/US Navy
The US Navy mocked Iran after it fired missiles at a replica US aircraft carrier on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The Navy posted a photo on its social-media account of a dummy ship with the caption, "Iran builds target ship. They're experts at that."
Iran dragged a mock US vessel into the Strait of Hormuz in an apparent show of force toward the US.
The US has the most powerful carrier fleet, with 11 aircraft carriers. Iran has none.
The drill came amid heightening tensions between the two countries.
The US Navy mocked Iran after its paramilitary forces fired underground missiles at a dummy US aircraft carrier on Wednesday.
The photo, posted on the Navy's Instagram account, featured a replica aircraft carrier built by Iran, along with the caption: "Iran builds target ship. They're experts at that."
The US's naval fleet is unparalleled in the rest of the world, outranking every country both technologically and in terms of size, with an armada of 11 aircraft carriers. Iran has no flattops.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard instead relies on large groups of small low-tech seacraft to launch swarm attacks, as demonstrated on the US mock-up vessel that was pulled into the Strait of Hormuz over the past couple of days.
"We cannot speak to what Iran hopes to gain by building this mock-up, or what tactical value they would hope to gain by using such a mock-up in a training or exercise scenario," Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich, a spokesperson in the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, which oversees operations in the Middle East, told The Associated Press.
"We remain confident in our naval forces' ability to defend themselves against any maritime threat," she added.
The drill appeared to be an attempted show of force against US ships, which Iran has previously built replicas of and fired missiles at.
"What was shown today in these exercises, at the level of aerospace and naval forces, was all offensive," Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami of the Revolutionary Guard told Iranian state TV, according to the BBC.
The exercises initially put US bases on heightened alert of a threat, but the "incident lasted for a matter of minutes, and an all clear was declared," a military statement said, according to Reuters.
The drill comes as tensions between the two countries have been simmering after a US drone strike killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani in January.
Mia Jankowicz contributed to this report.
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