January 1, 2023
Iran watchers conclude it was Eilat’s naval facility, while official Iranian media did not label it nor issue any threats against Israel, unlike its joint drill last year.By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
Iranian forces holding military drills in the Straits of Hormuz successfully targeted a mock-up of an Israeli base Saturday, according to Iranian media accounts.
The official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) publicized a video clip in which a UAV can be seen being launched from an Iranian Hengam-class landing ship called IRIS Lavan and dropping an object.
The footage then changes to show what looks like a computer-generated image of a small, coastal base with a ship in dock, before changing back into a real-life view of a bomb hitting one building, followed immediately by a drone smashing into an adjacent structure and exploding in a ball of fire.
The model of the ship remained unscathed in the practice attack, which is part of a joint naval, air and ground exercise called Zolfaghar-1401 that began Thursday in the Gulf of Oman.
Throwing into possible doubt what viewers saw, an Iranian-American with the Twitter handle Mehdi H. who uses open-source intelligence to publicize Iranian military affairs, tweeted Saturday that the IRNA video is a “mixture of two different Iranian drone operations. The one launched from IRIS Lavan is an Ababil, but the one hitting the target is an Arash loitering munition.”
Content retrieved from: https://worldisraelnews.com/iran-bombs-mock-israeli-navy-base-in-military-exercise/.