Iranian navy friendly fire incident leaves 19 dead

AMISSILE fired during an Iranian training exercise mistakenly struck a naval vessel instead of its intended target in waters near the Strait of Hormuz, killing 19 sailors and wounding 15 others, Iranian authorities said.

The bungled training exercises took place on Sunday and raised new questions about the readiness of the Islamic Republic’s armed forces amid heightened tensions with the US, just months after they accidentally shot down a Ukrainian jetliner near Tehran, killing 176 passengers.

It also comes soon after a tense naval encounter between Iranian and US forces in the nearby Persian Gulf.

President Donald Trump withdrew the US from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers two years ago, launching a maximum-pressure campaign against Iran that has pushed the rivals to the verge of conflict repeatedly.

Analysts have warned regional tensions are likely to increase again.

This week also marks the one-year anniversary of attacks on oil tankers near the strait that the US blamed on Iran.

The Iranian navy vessel Konarak was struck in Sunday’s friendly fire incident near the port of Jask, some 1,270km (790 miles) south-east of Tehran in the Gulf of Oman, the Iranian army said in a statement.

Iran’s regular navy typically patrols those waters, while vessels from the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard usually patrol the Persian Gulf.

The Konarak, a Hendijan-class support ship taking part in the exercise, came too close to a target and the missile struck it, state TV said.

Authorities did not identify the ship that fired the missile, though semi-official media in Iran identified it as the Iranian destroyer Jamaran.

The Konarak had been putting targets out for other ships to target, state TV said.

Initially, officials said only one sailor had been killed, but that number quickly changed to 19.

A local hospital admitted 12 sailors and treated another three with slight wounds, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.

Iranian vessels towed the Konarak into a nearby naval base after the strike.

A photograph released by the Iranian army showed burn marks and some damage to the vessel, though the military did not immediately offer detailed photographs of the site of the missile’s impact.

Iranian king Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi had purchased the 47m (155ft) Dutch-made vessel just before being toppled in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The Konarak entered service in 1988 and crews later overhauled the vessel some 30 years later, making it able to launch sea and anti-ship missiles.

Iran still relies on weaponry purchased under the shah due to international sanctions.

The boat typically carried a crew of 20 and authorities did not explain why it had 34 people on board at the time of the missile strike.

The army identified those killed as comprising officers and enlisted men, including a combat diver.

It appeared the sailors may have been firing Noor anti-ship missiles during the exercise, said Reed Foster, a senior analyst at Jane’s.

He said a replacement for the vessel “will likely take years to come into service” and represented a blow to the navy as Iran already saw a destroyer sink in the Caspian Sea in January 2018.

“Perhaps the greatest impact to the Iranian military and government is that this is the second high-profile incident in less than half a year where mistakes in missile targeting have resulted in significant loss of life,” Mr Foster said.