Iranian admiral: ‘We observe all enemy ships’ including US

Iran’s navy chief on Tuesday reportedly said that his country observes all U.S. ships in the Gulf region and archives images of their daily movements.

“We observe all enemy ships, particularly [those of] America, point-by-point from their origin until the moment they enter the region,” Rear Adm. Hossein Khanzadi said, according to Reuters. “We have complete images and a large archive of the daily and moment-by-moment traffic of the coalition forces and America.”

{mosads}Khanzadi added that Iran will hold joint naval exercises by March 2020 with a select group of unspecified allied countries, Reuters reported.

Tensions have heated up between Iran and the U.S. since May, when the Trump administration announced the deployment of a carrier strike group to the region due to unspecified threats from Iran.

Last month, the Islamic Republic shot down a U.S. surveillance drone that it claimed had been flying over Iranian airspace. The move nearly prompted a retaliatory strike from the U.S. until President Trump called it off at the last minute.

And last week, Trump said a U.S. Navy vessel shot down an Iranian drone in a “defensive action” in the Strait of Hormuz, adding that “this is the latest of many provocative and hostile actions by Iran against vessels operating in international waters.”

The strain has also continued to escalate between the two countries in light of Iran’s breach of two key limits of the 2015 nuclear deal, which Trump withdrew from in 2018 before reimposing harsh sanctions on Iran.