Iran has armed 51 cities and towns with a civil defense system aimed to respond to any foreign attack as tensions with the U.S. have mounted in recent weeks.
The defenses will enable Iran’s arms forces to “identify and monitor threats by using round-the-clock software according to the type of the threat and risk,” Deputy Defense Minister General Mehdi Farahi said Saturday, according to a Reuters report.
“These days, depending on the strength of countries, the form of battles has become more complicated,” he added.
Farahi did not name any specific countries Tehran could be targeted by but noted that conventional warfare has largely been replaced by cyber, biological and radioactive attack tactics.
The defensive measures come as military tensions in the Red Sea escalated this week when Iran’s navy attempted to capture several U.S. drones from international waters.
The first incident occurred Monday when an Iranian ship attempted to seize a U.S. drone in the Persian Gulf by towing it behind its vessel before the U.S. 5th Fleet dispatched a helicopter and ship to stop the Iranian crew.
Iran went further in its second attempt Thursday when a warship seized and detained two U.S. sea drones operating near one another in international waters.
The U.S. 5th Fleet again detected the seizure and dispatched two destroyers and a helicopter, the Pentagon said Friday evening.
The helicopter then approached the Iran warship and found the crew of the Iranian vessel attempting to cover up the sea drones with tarps.
“The Iranians knew they were in the wrong,” a U.S. official told Fox News. “This was deliberate. The U.S. 5th Fleet has been operating these systems since the fall of last year.”
The Iranian ship released the sea vessels Friday morning.
