Iran's IRGC fires ballistic missiles in Indian Ocean

Tehran: Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) held a new missile drill, during which it successfully fired ballistic missiles in the Indian Ocean over a distance of 1,800 km, a top official confirmed.

"One of our main purposes in defence policies and strategies is to be able to hit the enemy's warships, including aircraft carriers and battlecruisers, with long-range ballistic missiles," Xinhua news agency quoted Hossein Salami, IRGC's commander in chief, as saying to reporters on Saturday on the sidelines of the exercise.

The manoeuver, codenamed 'Great Prophet-15', consisted of the detection of hostile mock warships by the surveillance systems of the IRGC's Aerospace Force, and their destruction using ballistic missiles of various classes within a 1,800 km range, according to official news agency IRNA.

Salami noted that it is customary to hit mobile naval targets with low-speed cruise missiles, and praised the development of the long-range tactic as a "great defence achievement" of the IRGC's Aerospace Force.

Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Mohammad Baqeri also attended the war-game, and issued a warning against any hostile threat to Iran's national interests.

"Choosing a barrage of long-range missiles against naval targets illustrates that if the enemies of the Islamic republic have ill intentions against our national interests, maritime trade routes, and territory, they will come under missile strike and will be destroyed," he said.