In a wide-ranging July 5, 2020 interview with Sobh-e Sadeq, the weekly of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), IRGC navy commander Ali Reza Tangsiri reviewed his navy's latest innovations, including oceangoing helicopter carriers, underground cities with missile-launching capability,[1] and the creation of a naval Basij corps deployed along Iran's southern coastline in the Persian Gulf comprising 23,000 troops and hundreds of divisions, including aircraft and boats. He said that these underground cities were "floating," but what he meant is not clear.

Tangsiri stressed in the interview that his troops are loyal to the death to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Iran's Islamic revolution, and called again on Western forces, headed by the U.S., to withdraw from the Persian Gulf region because it is "our territory."[2] He reiterated the IRGC's threats against the U.S., saying: "We will, with His [God's] help, press on the throats of the Americans in a place where they do not think [we can]."[3] He also explained that the engines of the Iranian boats are so noisy in comparison to the American vessels because the noise is aimed at frightening all those who oppose Islam.

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Read the full dispatch at the Middle East Media Research Institute.