In this picture released by the official website of the Iranian Army on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, a missile is fired from a vessel during an Iranian Navy drill in the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean.
| Photo Credit: AP

Iran launched its first military exercise since the end of its 12-day war with Israel, state television reported on Thursday (August 21, 2025), with navy vessels launching missiles at targets at sea in the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean.

While such drills are routine in the Islamic Republic, the “Sustainable Power 1404″ exercise comes as authorities in Iran are trying to project strength in the wake of a war that saw Israel destroy air defence systems and bomb nuclear facilities and other sites.

The state TV report said the frigate IRIS Sabalan and a smaller vessel, the IRIS Ganaveh, launched Nasir and Qadir cruise missiles at targets in the sea, striking them. Coastal batteries also opened fire as part of the exercise.

Iran’s navy, estimated to have some 18,000 personnel, apparently avoided any major attack during the June war.

The navy, based out of the port city of Bandar Abbas, patrols the Gulf of Oman, the Indian Ocean and the Caspian Sea, and broadly leaves the Persian Gulf and its narrow mouth, the Strait of Hormuz, to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

The Guard’s naval forces are known for seizures of Western vessels during the breakdown of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, as well as closely shadowing passing U.S. Navy vessels coming into the region.

Since the end of the war, Iran has increasingly insisted that it is ready to counter any future Israeli attack.

Defence Minister Brig. Gen. Aziz Nasirzadeh said that the country has equipped its forces with new missiles, in remarks reported Wednesday by the state-run IRNA news agency. “In response to any potential enemy adventurism, our forces are prepared to use these new missiles effectively.”

Meanwhile, Iran has suspended its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been monitoring its nuclear sites as Tehran enriched uranium to near weapons-grade levels amid the tensions.

France, Germany and the United Kingdom, the European parties to Iran’s nuclear deal, have warned that if Tehran doesn’t reach a “satisfactory solution” to its dispute with the IAEA by Aug. 31, they will trigger a “snapback” reimposition of all United Nations sanctions on it previously lifted by the accord.

While already stung by American sanctions since 2018, analysts warn that renewed U.N. sanctions could further weaken the country’s ailing economy.

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File picture of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) force attending a rally in Tehran, Iran
| Photo Credit: via Reuters

Iran condemned Canada’s listing of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation as “an unwise and unconventional politically-motivated step,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars news agency on Thursday.

“Canada’s action will not have any effect on the Revolutionary Guards’ legitimate and deterrent power,” Mr. Kanaani said, adding that Tehran reserves the right to respond accordingly to the listing.

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On Wednesday, Ottawa listed the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organisation, a step that could lead to the investigation of former senior Iranian officials now living in Canada.

The United States took a similar step in 2019 against the Revolutionary Guards, which Western nations accuse of carrying out a global terrorist campaign.

Tehran rejects such claims, saying that the elite force is a sovereign institution responsible for safeguarding national security.

Tehran:

Iran on Friday paraded its military hardware on the anniversary of its 1980s war with Iraq, including “the longest-range drone in the world” along with ballistic and hypersonic missiles, Iranian state media said. They said the drone “was unveiled” in the parade, which was broadcast live, and that drones displayed in the event were named Mohajer, Shahed and Arash.

The Islamic Republic said last month that it had built an advanced drone named Mohajer-10 with an enhanced flight range and duration as well as a larger payload.

It has an operational range of 2,000 km (1,240 miles) and can fly for up to 24 hours, state media reported then, adding that its payload could reach 300 kg (661 pounds), double the capacity of the Mohajer-6 drone.

U.S. officials have accused Iran of providing Mohajer-6 drones, among other unmanned aerial vehicles, to Russia for its war against Ukraine. Tehran denies this.

“Our forces ensure security in the region and the Persian Gulf,” President Ebrahim Raisi said at Friday’s parade in the capital Tehran. “We can teach the people of the region that resistance is today’s way. What forces the enemy to retreat is not submission and wavering, but resistance.”

A video released last month by Iranian media showed the Mohajer-6 among other military hardware, with a text reading “prepare your shelters” in both Persian and Hebrew, the latter an allusion to Iran’s arch-regional enemy, Israel.

The Iran-Iraq war erupted on Sept. 22, 1980 when the forces of then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded Iran. The conflict, which was economically devastating and left at least half a million dead, ended in stalemate in August 1988.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)