U.S. accuses Iran of conducting missile test near warships

Iran denied that its Revolutionary Guards launched rockets near a USA aircraft carrier in the Gulf and condemned US plans for new sanctions over its ballistic missile programme.

“The Guards’ naval force had no exercise in the past week when the Americans claim that a missile or rocket was sacked in the Hormuz Strait area”, spokesman General Ramezan Sharif said on the Guards’ official website.

The U.S. and France said the October launch violated a U.N. Security Council resolution banning Iranian development of a ballistic missile.

The USS Harry S. Truman recently arrived in the Persian Gulf to support coalition airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

“If US continues its illegitimate interference w/ Iran s right to defend itself a new program will be devised to enhance missile capabilities”, the president wrote on Twitter.

Raines added: “These actions were highly provocative, unsafe and unprofessional and call into question Iran’s commitment to the security of a waterway vital to worldwide commerce”.

The Strait of Hormuz is only about 33 kilometers (21 miles) wide at its narrowest point.

While the United States has complained previously about other Iranian war games and maneuvers there, Saturday’s incident comes after a series of weapons tests and other moves by the Islamic Republic following the nuclear deal.

Saturday’s rocket fire should be seen as part of a pattern by Iran since its naval loss in 1988, said Eugene Gholz, an associate professor at the University of Texas who is an expert on the use of military power in the Strait of Hormuz.

To protect its considerable interests there, the United States deployed warships to the area to defend US vessels in April after Iran seized a cargo ship owned by the Danish company Maersk that was traversing the strait.

Officials said the ships were in the “internationally recognised maritime traffic lane” when the Iranian Navy announced over maritime radio that it was about to conduct a live-fire exercise and asked other vessels to remain clear.

Adam Szubin, the acting undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, wrote in a statement circulated on Capitol Hill that the USA “will vigorously press sanctions against activities” outside of the nuclear deal.

It was the third such provocation in the past 14 months, a spokesman for the Navy’s 5 Fleet, responsible for operations in the Persian Gulf, told Fox News. It seized a Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship and later released it in May after earlier surrounding U.S.-flagged cargo ship transiting the strait.