By Cole Hill (staff@latinospost.com) | First Posted: Mar 18, 2013 04:38 PM EDT
Tags Iran

Iran launched a missile-guided Destroyer ship Sunday, its first-ever "heavy military" vessel to hit the Caspian Sea, according to government-run TV. 

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad commemorated the launch of the 1,400-ton destroyer Jamaran-2 in the coastal city of Anzali, roughly 150 miles northwest of Tehran, The Christian Science Monitor reported.

"The destroyer is there to meet those who want to jeopardize the security of surrounding nations," Ahmadinejad told a crowd, state media reported, according to The Christian Post.

Iran's bold launch could easily stroke tensions in the region. The waters of the Caspian Sea are a constantly disputed territory among countries such as Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, nations which all border the inland sea.

Iran will put its new destroyer through a battery of final tests and then the Jamaran-2 will officially join the rest of the country's navy in a couple of months, state TV reported.

About 94 yards long, with steady cruise speed of 30 knots, the Jamaran-2 is armed with surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, as well as an arsenal of anti-aircraft weapons, and "sophisticated radar radar and communications terminals," said the government's report. Iran built an earlier iteration of the Jamaran ship in the Persian Gulf in 2010.

Iran has steadily been attempting to create a self-sustained military since 1992, reportedly building its own fighter jets, as well as tanks, missiles, "light" submarines and also torpedoes, according to The Monitor. President Ahmadinejad seems to be engaged in his country's arms race as a matter of saber rattling with The West; feeling the need to prove just how dangerous Iran is, in a similar fashion to North Korea's military posturing. He said at the Jamaran-2 launch that the West will finally understand that the nation's ability to build nuclear weapons can't be stopped because they have obviously "learned from Iran's technical expertise." 

Iran's launch announcement arrives a few weeks after the country also claimed to have a new stealth fighter jet. President Ahmadinejad mugged with the purported Qaher F313 jet in photographs circulated to press as evidence of the nation's military capabilities, describing the craft as "among the most advanced fighter jets in the world."

Flight experts from around the world eventually debunked the pictures, poking holes in Ahmadinejad's claims. Pointing to certain features on the jet, such as its dimensions, instrument panel, and cockpit, they concluded the craft was a fake. 

"It looks like the Iranians dumped some rudimentary flight controls and an ejection seat into a shell molded in what they thought were stealthy angles," said Andrew Davies, senior defense analyst and director of research at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, according to the Post.

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