Iran navy launches stealth warship

Iran’s navy yesterday launched a domestically made destroyer, which state media said has radarevading stealth properties, as tensions rise with archenemy the United States.

In a ceremony carried live on state television, the Sahand destroyer – which can sustain voyages lasting five months without resupply – joined Iran’s regular navy at a base in Bandar Abbas on the Arabian Gulf.

The Sahand has a flight deck for helicopters, torpedo launchers, anti-aircraft and anti-ship guns, surface-to-surface and surface-toair missiles and electronic warfare capabilities, state television reported.

“This vessel is the result of daring and creative design relying on the local technical knowledge of the Iranian Navy...and has been built with stealth capabilities,” Rear Admiral Ali Reza Shaikhi, head of the navy shipyards that built the destroyer, told the state news agency IRNA.

Iran launched its first locally made destroyer in 2010 as part of a programme to revamp its navy equipment which dates from before the 1979 Islamic revolution and is mostly US-made.