News - Iranian Navy Deploys Submarines in High Seas - FNA

Iranian Navy Deploys Submarines in High Seas

TEHRAN (FNA)- Informed sources said that the Iranian Navy has deployed its submarines in far seas as part of its plan for widening its naval presence in the high seas and oceans.

An informed source told FNA on Tuesday that the submarines were deployed in international waters together with the dispatch of 14th fleet of warships sent by Iran to the high seas.

The move comes after high-ranking Navy commanders announced preparedness to send submarines to long-term missions.

Article Continues at FN 


Iran has been sending naval missions to the Gulf of Aden for quite some time (as the article mentions, they're up to their 14th journey). Up until now however they've usually been restricted to consisting of a warship like the Alvand-class frigates, and a resupply ship like the Kharq. The IRGCN also have an unknown presence conducting anti-piracy operations as well.

There have even been reports of Iranian submarines in the Red Sea / Gulf of Aden before; various newspapers and political groups accused Iran of establishing a military base near the city of Assab in 2008/2009. I even wrote about it in the piece "Iran's Military Relationship with Eritrea" where I concluded that this news story was probably fabricated due to the sources for the claims. However there still remained some tantalizing hints that indicated that it might not be entirely false. The most prominent of which is Google Earth imagery which shows the construction of a large pier (larger then anything in the Eritrean navy) north of the city of Assab (13.218256, 42.527420) in 2007 and it has been speculated that this is the Iranian naval base talked about in the reports.

Regardless of whether or not this base exists, this news report seems to have some credibility because it comes not from an opposition source who have a vested interest in threat-construction but from the "semi-official" (read: official) Fars News Agency. Assuming this is true the most likely canidate is one of the Kilo class submarines Iran purchased from Russia during the 1990s. Since the Persian Gulf is so shallow, large submarines like the Kilo are unusually handicapped so getting them into deeper waters would actually make much better use of their abilities. Though by comparison, these Kilos are not state-of-the-art when compared to Western navies submarines. Iran has a total of three Kilos, one of them is in drydock while two appear to be sea-worthy though one would likely be retained in port for a contingency (if the relative size of previous fleets are anything to go by). Iran's other submarines like the Ghadir are all too short ranged to either get to the Gulf of Aden under their own power, or once they're there, have much of an effect.

The stated goal, according to FNA's source is "Identifying combat vessels of the different world countries, collecting information about sea beds in international waters are among the main tasks of these submarines". This somewhat surprising since it explicitly acknowledges that the goal of this operation isn't anti-piracy work, but directly spying on other nations. This is a common practice across the world but it's odd to see it admitted in such honest terms. The secondary goal of collecting information about sea geography may be perfectly innocent or it may serve a military purpose if Iran did intend to operate in this theatre in the event of a conflict.

Operating in the Gulf of Aden would give Iran a chance to shadow US/NATO/Other warships, gaining insights into how the ships behave when in a warzone (even a low intensity one like Somalia piracy). It also gives Iran a chance to further project their power beyond their immediate region and submarines can play a crucial role in maintaining far-off projection capability.