Iran moves mock aircraft carrier to sea amid U.S. tensions

Iran has moved a mock aircraft carrier to the strategic Strait of Hormuz amid heightened tensions between Tehran and the U.S., satellite photographs released Monday show, likely signalling 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 percent 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 U.S. Navy’s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, which patrols Mideast waterways, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The replica resembles the Nimitz-class carriers that the U.S. 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.