Iran Moves Mock Aircraft Carrier to Strait of Hormuz

In this Feb. 15, 2020, satellite photo provided on July 27, 2020, by Maxar Technologies, a mockup aircraft carrier built by Iran is seen at Bandar Abbas, Iran, before being put to sea. Satellite photographs released Monday, July 27, showed Iran has moved the aircraft carrier out to sea likely for naval drills amid heightened tensions between Tehran and the US. (Maxar Technologies via AP)
In this Feb. 15, 2020, satellite photo provided on July 27, 2020, by Maxar Technologies, a mockup aircraft carrier built by Iran is seen at Bandar Abbas, Iran, before being put to sea. Satellite photographs released Monday, July 27, showed Iran has moved the aircraft carrier out to sea likely for naval drills amid heightened tensions between Tehran and the US. (Maxar Technologies via AP)
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Iran Moves Mock Aircraft Carrier to Strait of Hormuz

In this Feb. 15, 2020, satellite photo provided on July 27, 2020, by Maxar Technologies, a mockup aircraft carrier built by Iran is seen at Bandar Abbas, Iran, before being put to sea. Satellite photographs released Monday, July 27, showed Iran has moved the aircraft carrier out to sea likely for naval drills amid heightened tensions between Tehran and the US. (Maxar Technologies via AP)
In this Feb. 15, 2020, satellite photo provided on July 27, 2020, by Maxar Technologies, a mockup aircraft carrier built by Iran is seen at Bandar Abbas, Iran, before being put to sea. Satellite photographs released Monday, July 27, showed Iran has moved the aircraft carrier out to sea likely for naval drills amid heightened tensions between Tehran and the US. (Maxar Technologies via AP)

Iran has moved a mock aircraft carrier to the strategic Strait of Hormuz amid heightened tensions between Tehran and the US, satellite photographs released Monday show, likely signaling the Islamic Republic soon plans to use it for live-fire drills.

An image from Maxar Technologies taken Sunday shows an Iranian fast boat speed toward the carrier, sending waves up in its wake, after a tugboat pulled her out into the strait from the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas.

Iranian state media and officials have yet to acknowledge bringing the replica out to the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world's oil passes. However, its appearance there suggests Iran´s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard is preparing an encore of a similar mock-sinking it conducted in 2015.

The US Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, which patrols Mideast waterways, remains "confident in our naval forces´ ability to defend themselves against any maritime threat," said spokeswoman Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich when asked about the faux carrier's movements.

"We cannot speak to what Iran hopes to gain by building this mockup, or what tactical value they would hope to gain by using such a mock-up in a training or exercise scenario," Rebarich told The Associated Press. "We do not seek conflict, but remain ready to defend US forces and interests from maritime threats in the region."

The replica resembles the Nimitz-class carriers that the US Navy routinely sails into the Persian Gulf from the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the waterway. The USS Nimitz, the namesake of the class, just entered Mideast waters late last week from the Indian Ocean, likely to replace the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Arabian Sea.

The replica carries 16 mock-ups of fighter jets on its deck, according to the satellite photos taken by Maxar Technologies. The vessel appears to be some 200 meters (650 feet) long and 50 meters (160 feet) wide. A real Nimitz is over 300 meters (980 feet) long and 75 meters (245 feet) wide.

Last summer saw a series of attacks and incidents further ramp up tensions between Iran and the US. They reached a crescendo with the Jan. 3 US drone strike near Baghdad International Airport that killed Qassem Soleimani, head of the Guard´s expeditionary Quds, or Jerusalem, Force. Iran retaliated with a ballistic missile attack that injured dozens of American troops stationed in neighboring Iraq.

Also, last week a US F-15 fighter jet approached a Mahan Air flight over Syria, which led to passengers on the Iranian jetliner getting injured.



Australia Says Will Not Commit Troops in Advance to Any Conflict

Residential properties are seen near the Sydney Harbour Bridge in, Sydney, Australia, July 10, 2025. REUTERS/Hollie Adams
Residential properties are seen near the Sydney Harbour Bridge in, Sydney, Australia, July 10, 2025. REUTERS/Hollie Adams
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Australia Says Will Not Commit Troops in Advance to Any Conflict

Residential properties are seen near the Sydney Harbour Bridge in, Sydney, Australia, July 10, 2025. REUTERS/Hollie Adams
Residential properties are seen near the Sydney Harbour Bridge in, Sydney, Australia, July 10, 2025. REUTERS/Hollie Adams

Australia will not commit troops in advance to any conflict, Defense Industry Minister Pat Conroy said on Sunday, responding to a report that the Pentagon has pressed its ally to clarify what role it would play if the US and China went to war over Taiwan.

Australia prioritizes its sovereignty and "we don't discuss hypotheticals", Conroy said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

"The decision to commit Australian troops to a conflict will be made by the government of the day, not in advance but by the government of the day," he said.

The Financial Times reported on Saturday that Elbridge Colby, the US under-secretary of defense for policy, has been pressing Australian and Japanese officials on what they would do in a Taiwan conflict, although the US does not offer a blank cheque guarantee to defend Taiwan.

Colby posted on X that the Department of Defense is implementing President Donald Trump's "America First" agenda of restoring deterrence, which includes "urging allies to step up their defense spending and other efforts related to our collective defense".

China claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own and has not ruled out the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control. Taiwan President Lai Ching-te rejects China's sovereignty claims, saying only Taiwan's people can decide their future.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, speaking in Shanghai at the start of a six-day visit to China that is likely to focus on security and trade, said Canberra did not want any change to the status quo on Taiwan.

Conroy said Australia was concerned about China's military buildup of nuclear and conventional forces, and wants a balanced Indo-Pacific region where no country dominates. He said China was seeking a military base in the Pacific, which was not in Australia's interest, Reuters reported.

'GOAL IS NO WAR'

Talisman Sabre, Australia's largest war-fighting exercise with the United States, opened on Sunday on Sydney Harbour and will involve 40,000 troops from 19 countries, including Japan, South Korea, India, Britain, France and Canada.

Conroy said China's navy might be watching the exercise to collect information, as it had done in the past.

The war games will span thousands of kilometers from Australia's Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island to the Coral Sea on Australia's east coast, in a rehearsal of joint war fighting, said Vice Admiral Justin Jones, chief of joint operations for the Australian Defense Force.

The air, sea, land and space exercises over two weeks will "test our ability to move our forces into the north of Australia and operate from Australia", Jones told reporters.

"I will leave it to China to interpret what 19 friends, allies and partners wanting to operate together in the region means to them. But for me... it is nations that are in search of a common aspiration for peace, stability, a free and open Indo-Pacific," he said.

US Army Lieutenant General Joel Vowell, deputy commanding general for the Pacific, said Talisman Sabre would improve the readiness of militaries to respond together and was "a deterrent mechanism because our ultimate goal is no war".

"If we could do all this alone and we could go fast, but because we want to go far, we have to do it together and that is important because of the instability that is resident in the region," Vowell said.

The United States is Australia's major security ally. Although Australia does not permit foreign bases, the US military is expanding its rotational presence and fuel stores on Australian bases, which from 2027 will have US Virginia submarines at port in Western Australia.