Iran Guards drone spies on US warships in Gulf, state media says

The Dwight D Eisenhower, which Iran claims it flew a drone over to carry out surveillance. AFP

An Iranian Revolutionary Guards drone successfully carried out a surveillance flight over an American aircraft carrier in the Gulf, the state-linked Tasnim news agency claimed in a Sunday report on its website.

A video published by the agency, which could not be immediately verified, shows a light blue-coloured drone with the name Ababil III written on the wings in Farsi and Latin script.

It is seen taking off from a desert base near the sea, as the soundtrack of an action movie plays in the background, and flies over first an escort ship and then an aircraft carrier with fighter planes parked on the deck. The vessel shown is purported to be the USS Dwight D Eisenhower, a US aircraft carrier stationed in the Gulf.

"The naval force of Sepah [the Guards' Farsi name] is aware of all the movements of American terrorist forces in the region and the Persian Gulf and closely monitors them," Tasnim wrote.

Tasnim did not name the aircraft carrier or say when the video was shot.

In the Koran, Ababil refers to a type of magical birds that protected Islam's holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia against an invader king's elephant army by dropping stones on them.

The Tasnim report comes nearly three weeks after the US branded the Guards as a "foreign terrorist organisation" and added it to a blacklist.

Iran swiftly retaliated by declaring US troops "terrorists".

The Guards is an ideological military force that works in parallel to the regular army.

Its naval arm is charged with the defence and security of the Gulf including the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a global shipping route where American forces routinely pass.

The Trump administration said on Monday that it will no longer exempt any countries from US sanctions if they continue to buy Iranian oil, stepping up pressure on Iran in a move that primarily affects the five remaining major importers: China and India and US treaty allies Japan, South Korea and Turkey. The move is part of the administration's "maximum pressure" campaign on Iran that aims to eliminate all of its revenue from oil exports, which the U.S. says are used to destabilize the region.

Iran reiterated its long-running threat to close the Strait of Hormuz if it's prevented from using the crucial waterway in the Persian Gulf, through which about a third of all oil traded at sea passes.