Iran's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee has drafted a bill calling for Iran to try to stop oil tankers from shipping crude through the Strait of Hormuz to countries that support sanctions against it, a committee member said yesterday.
"There is a bill prepared in the National Security and Foreign Policy committee of Parliament that stresses the blocking of oil tanker traffic carrying oil to countries that have sanctioned Iran," Iranian MP Ibrahim Agha-Mohammadi was quoted by Iran's parliamentary news agency as saying. Meanwhile, Iran said it was readying ballistic missile war games simulating a counter-attack against US or Israeli targets in the region in the event of air strikes on its nuclear facilities.
The three-day drill in Iran’s central desert region was starting days after the European Union and the United States imposed severe new sanctions, and on the eve of another round of negotiations with world powers seeking to curb Tehran’s nuclear
ambitions.
“All units and missile bases have commenced their preparation and movement to the designated areas,” the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s powerful elite military force conducting the exercise, said in a statement published by the official IRNA news agency.
It said the “tens of different missiles” to be used included the Shahab-3, a ballistic missile with a range of 2,000 km capable of hitting Israel.
The other ballistic missiles it said would be used – the Fateh, Tondar, Zelzal, Khalij Fars and Qiam – have lesser ranges of 200 to 750 kilometres.
