Iran stations warship in Red Sea as US aircraft carrier leaves Middle East

Iran’s Alborz warship has passed through the Bab al-Mandab Strait and entered the Red Sea, the country’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Monday.

Iranian warships have been operating in the region “to secure shipping lanes since 2009,” Tasnim said.

Iranian-backed groups have not reduced their attacks in the Middle East. On the opposite, pro-Iranian media sought to highlight how the attacks are increasing. Al-Mayadeen media, which is pro-Iran, claimed that there were attacks targeting Al-Asad based in Iraq and Shaddadi in Syria, two places where US forces are located. The US is in Syria and Iraq to help defeat ISIS.

Reports on December 31 that the USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier is heading out of the Mediterranean is also raising eyebrows in Iran and the region. While Gaza fighting appears to be reduced slightly, Iran continues to want to manage the conflict against Israel. Towards that end, Iranian Tasnim ran a long interview about the role of Qasem Soleimani in the region. Although the interview is ostensibly about Soleimani, who was killed in January 2020 by the US, the report examines recent details about the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen targeting ships and Palestinian terror groups targeting Israel.

Iran’s Alborz warship has passed through the Bab al-Mandab Strait and entered the Red Sea, the country’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Monday.

Iranian warships have been operating in the region “to secure shipping lanes since 2009,” Tasnim said.

Aircraft carriers operating in the region

The article details questions about US aircraft carriers in the region. There were two carriers in the region, the Eisenhower and Ford.

The US had sent the second carrier after the October 7 attack to deter Hezbollah and others from escalating attacks.

The Iranian regime’s view is that these naval assets have not been able to prevent the Houthis in Yemen from continuing attacks on ships. However, a US helicopter destroyed three small Houthi boats over the weekend, indicating that the Houthis are taking losses. The story about the US carrier leaving the region was covered in Al-Mayadeen media, which is pro-Iran, showing that pro-Iran figures in the region are watching this development closely.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Ministry has stressed that the recent killing of IRGC officer Razi Mousavi in Syria is not a setback for Iran. The opposite appears to be true since Iran’s regime has had a huge outpouring of funeral events for the late IRGC officer who was killed in an airstrike. Iran has blamed Israel. Iran’s foreign ministry is spinning this as being an incident that won’t stop Iran’s projects in the region. The Iranian foreign ministry also stressed that Iran-Egypt ties are improving. This could have negative implications because Iran backs Hamas in Gaza, which borders Egypt.

Seth Frantzman is the author of Drone Wars: Pioneers, Killing Machine, Artificial Intelligence and the Battle for the Future (Bombardier 2021) and an adjunct fellow at The Foundation for Defense of Democracies.