Iran: On Ground Updates - September 16, 2008

Iran: On Ground Updates
Iran Gives Full Powers to the hard-line Elite Revolutionary Guards in Persian Gulf
Tuesday, September 16, 2008

USAToday.com has the following article posted on their website today and it starts off like this... Iran announced Tuesday that it has put the elite Revolutionary Guards in charge of defending the country's territorial Persian Gulf waters in what appeared to be a hardening of its stance in the vital oil route... U.S. commanders in the Gulf have in the past said they find Guards ships more confrontational than the regular Iranian navy, which until the new order was responsible for Iranian defenses in the Gulf... Iran has warned repeatedly that it will close the narrow Hormuz Strait at the mouth of the Gulf if the United States or Israel attacks it amid tensions over Iran's nuclear program. Around 40% of the world's oil passes through Hormuz. Last winter, Iranian and U.S. ships patrolling the Gulf had a series of small confrontations in Hormuz that the Americans blamed on provocations by Guards ships...
Read the rest HERE

AFP.Google.com has this take on the story... Iran has the power to control the Gulf as no vessel can cross the vital seaway without coming in range of its sophisticated weaponry, a top aide to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday... The saber-rattling comments from General Rahim Yahya Safavi came a day after the International Atomic Energy Agency accused Iran of stalling its investigation into the country's nuclear drive... "Responsibility for defending the Persian Gulf has been handed over to the naval forces of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps," Safavi was quoted as saying by the official news agency IRNA... Their missiles can cover the entire width of the Gulf and "no ship can cross it without being within range," the former commander-in-chief of the Guards told IRNA...
Read the rest at link below...
Iran boasts its forces can control the Gulf