Iran’s navy added a cruise missile-launching destroyer to the Caspian Sea fleet on Monday, according to state media. The 1,400-ton Deilaman, named after a town in the north of the country, is 95 meters in length and 11 meters in breadth and can shoot torpedoes at 30 knots, per the IRNA news agency.
The article states that Deilaman can identify more than 100 targets at the same time, including warships, drones, helicopters, submarines, and aircraft.
Major General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, chief of the Armed Forces General Staff, described the Caspian as a sea of harmony and friendship and stated Iran’s naval power there would promote the security of commercial fleets by confronting terrorists and likely events in the future.
This is Iran’s sixth warship to be commissioned in the Caspian Sea, the world’s biggest inland body of water shared by Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Russia, Azerbaijan, and Iran.
In recent years, Iranian vessels have visited Russian and Azerbaijani naval ports in the sea. Still, Iran has also attacked Azerbaijan for close military connections with Israel, which Iran regards as its archenemy.
While Russia is the most powerful naval force in the Caspian, Iran has attempted to establish a naval presence across the sea since the latter part of the 1960s and has steadily increased its strength since the 1990s. Iran also maintains three naval bases on the sea’s coast.