“We can easily target hostile aircraft carriers with our supersonic missiles and we have advanced technology that would leave our enemies in awe,” said Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami, the IRGC deputy commander.

A senior member of Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) warned on Friday that the Iranian military had the ability to target aircraft carriers using supersonic missiles.

“We can easily target hostile aircraft carriers with our supersonic missiles and we have advanced technology that would leave our enemies in awe,” Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami, the IRGC deputy commander, said during a speech carried by the official Iranian news agency IRNA.

His remarks come a day after senior commanders in Iran’s armed forces announced large-scale military maneuvers in the south of the country, stretching from the north of the Indian Ocean to the strategic Strait of Hormuz in the Arabian Gulf.

Iran’s navy chief, Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayari, was quoted by IRNA on Thursday as saying that the five-day drills would extend to the Gulf of Aden. He asked that foreign forces “leave the area” to avoid incidents.

Brig. Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi, the deputy commander of the Iranian army, was quoted by the news agency as saying that various “surface and under-surface units” from the Iranian army, IRGC and Basij would take part in the drills.

Mousavi said the war games, which are set for Dec. 25, aimed at boosting the combat capabilities of the Iranian armed forces.

The commander said the drills carried “a message of peace and friendship for regional states as Iran is never seeking dominance over other nations,” according to IRNA.

During Friday’s speech, Salami praised Iran’s technological accomplishments, particularly at the level of its missile technology.

Despite sanctions, “we [Iran] secured these accomplishments and today we can claim that … we are among the world’s leaders in this [missile technology] domain,” he said.

[wpResize]