(Reuters) – Iran announced new naval war games on Tuesday and revealed that one of its military aircraft had photographed a U.S. aircraft carrier, a day after Washington said Tehran was challenging its sea power in the Middle East.
The plane flew over the carrier in the Sea of Oman and took pictures of it, a senior Iranian commander was quoted as saying on Tuesday. Navy commander Habibollah Sayari did not say when the incident took place, but suggested that the U.S. ship’s crew had objected to the Iranian action.
Iran also announced that it would start eight days of war games in the Gulf and the Sea of Oman on Wednesday.
The planned naval maneuvers coincide with rising tension between Iran and the West, which says Tehran’s nuclear work is aimed at making bombs. Iran denies this.
Sayari spoke a day after U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that Iran was challenging U.S. naval power in the Middle East with an array of offensive and defensive weapons.
Fars, a semi-official Iranian news agency, quoted Sayari as saying an Iranian S-27 aircraft had photographed the U.S. ship and that it was the navy’s “duty and right” to identify foreign vessels in the area.
“Despite the objection of this (U.S.) vessel, we reiterate firmly that doing this is our definite right,” he said.
Al Alam, Iran’s Arabic-language satellite television station, quoted him as saying the scheduled war games would display the Iranian navy’s defense capability…
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