Iran moves mock aircraft carrier, likely for drills

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran has moved a mock aircraft carrier to the strategic Strait of Hormuz amid heightened tensions with the United States, satellite photographs released on Monday show, likely signalling the Islamic Republic soon plans to use it for live-fire drills.

An image from Maxar Technologies taken Sunday shows an Iranian fast boat speed toward the carrier, sending waves up in its wake, after a tugboat pulled it out into the strait from Iran’s port city of Bandar Abbas.

Iranian state media and officials have yet to acknowledge bringing the replica to the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil passes. Its appearance there suggests Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard is preparing an encore of a similar mock-sinking it conducted in 2015.

The U.S. Navy’s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, which patrols Mideast waterways, remains “confident in our naval forces’ ability to defend themselves against any maritime threat,” said spokeswoman Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich when asked about the faux carrier’s movements.

“We cannot speak to what Iran hopes to gain by building this mockup, or what tactical value they would hope to gain by using such a mockup in a training or exercise scenario,” Rebarich said. “We do not seek conflict, but remain ready to defend U.S. forces and interests from maritime threats in the region.”

The replica resembles the Nimitz-class carriers that the U.S. Navy routinely sails into the Persian Gulf from the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the waterway. The USS Nimitz, the namesake of the class, just entered Mideast waters late last week from the Indian Ocean, likely to replace the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Arabian Sea.