TEHRAN, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Iran on Thursday began a large-scale military drill in an area that stretches from the southwest to the southeast of the country, Iran's semi-official Fars news agency reported.
Codenamed Modafean Aseman Velayat 1402, or Guardians of Velayat Sky 1402, the exercise involved selected units of the air, navy and ground forces of the Iranian Army and Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), the report said.
It added the drill was being held in an area that stretched from the southwestern city of Abadan to the southeastern port city of Chabahar, saying the offshore section of the exercise was staged in the southern waters within a radius of 400 km off the coastline.
The drill's spokesman Abbas Farajpour said intelligence and reconnaissance operations were carried out by manned and unmanned aerial vehicles during the drill, and tactical and defense measures were taken to detect, track and combat invading aircraft.
Earlier in the day, Qader Rahimzadeh, commander of the country's Khatam al-Anbia Air Defense Base, said all the tactics and methods used in the drill would be hybrid, homegrown and creative, which had been designed and would be implemented to tackle modern structures and threats, according to Fars.
He noted that the use of modern technologies was one of the prominent features of the exercise, adding the drill would be aimed at improving the armed forces' combat preparedness and deterrence, assessing domestically-developed air defense systems in countering diverse threats, mounting all-out, 360-degree defense in the area of electronic warfare and cyberspace, and enhancing intelligence dominance. ■
