Iran has built a fake aircraft carrier that closely resembles US navy vessels for use in live drills, amid escalating tensions between the two countries.
The fake carrier, seen in a series of satellite photographs, is similar in appearance to the Nimitz-class carriers routinely sailed by the US Navy.
The replica holds 16 mock-ups of fighter jets on its deck, satellite photos taken by Maxar Technologies revealed.
While not yet acknowledged by Iranian officials, its appearance in the port city of Bandar Abbas suggests Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard is preparing a repeat of a similar mock-sinking in 2015.
The vessel appears to be some 650ft long and 160ft wide, smaller than a real Nimitz which is 980ft and 245ft wide.
The fake carrier sits just a short distance away from the parking lot in which the Guard unveiled over 100 new speedboats in May - the type routinely deployed in encounters between Iranian sailors and the US Navy.
Those boats carry both mounted machine guns and missiles.
The mock-up strongly resembles a similar one used in February 2015 during a military exercise called 'Great Prophet 9.'
During that drill, Iran swarmed the fake aircraft carrier with speedboats firing machine guns and rockets.
Surface-to-sea missiles later targeted and destroyed the fake carrier.
'American aircraft carriers are very big ammunition depots housing a lot of missiles, rockets, torpedoes and everything else,' the Guard´s then-navy chief, Adm. Ali Fadavi, said on state television at the time.
That drill, however, came as Iran and world powers remained locked in negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program.
Today, the deal born out of those negotiations is in tatters.
President Donald Trump withdrew America from the accord in May 2018, and Iran responded by abandoning nearly every tenant of the agreement - though it still allows UN inspectors access to its nuclear sites.
Last summer saw a series of attacks ramp up tensions between the two countries.
They reached a crescendo in January with a US air strike near Baghdad International Airport that killed Qassem Soleimani, head of the Guard's Quds Force.
Iran retaliated with a ballistic missile strike on targeting US forces in Iraq, which left more than 100 American troops with serious brain injuries.
That same day, the Guard accidentally shot down a Ukrainian jetliner in Tehran, killing 176 people.
The new satellite images of the replica plane come as Iran announced plans to execute a man accused of sharing details on the movements of Soleimani in the lead up to his death.
Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili revealed on Tuesday that Iranian citizen Mahmoud Mousavi Majd had been convicted in a Revolutionary Court, which handles security cases behind closed doors.
He also stopped short of directly linking the information allegedly offered by Majd to Soleimani´s death.
Iran's announcement of the impending execution shows the county is taking Soleimani's assassination seriously.
An exercise targeting a mock US aircraft carrier may also send that message as well, particularly if it involves a swarm attack of smaller vessels.
Analysts believe Iran would employ such smaller vessels if it did become involved in a shooting war with the US Navy.
Esmaili did not say when Majd would be executed, other than that it would be 'soon.'
The Israeli prime minister's office, which oversees the Mossad, declined to comment.
The CIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and it wasn´t immediately clear if Majd had an attorney.
The US Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, which patrols Mideast waters, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
