The Iranian military yesterday began a short-range missile drill in the Gulf of Oman, state TV reported, amid heightened regional tensions over Tehran’s nuclear program and a US pressure campaign against the Islamic republic.
The two-day missile drill was being held in the gulf’s southeastern waters.
Two new Iranian-made warships joined the exercise: the Zereh, or “armor,” a missile-launching vessel, and the Makran, a logistics vessel with a helicopter pad named for a coastal region in southern Iran.
Photo: Iranian Army via AP
US President Donald Trump in 2018 unilaterally withdrew the US from Iran’s nuclear deal, in which Tehran had agreed to limit its uranium enrichment in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
Trump cited Iran’s ballistic missile program, among other issues, in withdrawing from the accord.
When the US then ramped up sanctions, the Iranian government gradually and publicly abandoned the deal’s limits on its nuclear development, as a series of escalating incidents pushed the two countries toward the brink of war at the beginning of the year.
Photo: Iranian Army via AP
Over the past few weeks, Iran has increased its military drills.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Saturday last week held a naval parade in the Persian Gulf and Iran a week earlier held a massive drone maneuver across half of the country.
Also last week, Iran seized a South Korean oil tanker and its crew members in the Gulf, and continues to hold the vessel at an Iranian port.
Iran has apparently sought to increase its leverage over Seoul ahead of negotiations over billions of US dollars in Iranian assets frozen in South Korean banks tied to US sanctions on Iran.
On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and imposed new sanctions on several senior Iranian officials.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani yesterday said in a televised speech during a Cabinet meeting that US sanctions would fail.
“We are witnessing the failure of a policy, the maximum pressure campaign, economic terrorism,” he said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
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