国际英语新闻:Iran wraps up large-scale military drills aiming at offensive tactics

TEHRAN, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- The large-scale military drills of the Iranian Army's Ground Forces in the central country was wrapped up on Saturday seeking to practice offensive tactics.

The massive war game, code-named "Eqtedar," lasted for two days in a vast area in Nasrabad region in Iran's central province of Isfahan.

A total of 12,000 army forces took in the exercise carrying out new offensive tactics in accordance with structural changes in the Army Ground Force, Commander of the Iranian Army Ground Force Brigadier General Kiomars Heidari said.

The commander said the Army Ground Force had developed a new structure in its units, adopting an offensive approach.

On Saturday, the Army's units practiced a tactic to prevent the enemy from closing in on the battlefield by creating a long row of blasts using remote-controlled land bombs during a military exercise, according to Tasnim news agency.

The army's combat engineers created a line of explosion of six kilometers to block the forward movement of the hypothetical enemy's personnel carriers and armored vehicles, according to the report.

The military engineering units had been deployed to the drill zone 10 days in advance of the war game to design and prepare the line of explosion and plant remote-controlled bombs.

In another operation on Saturday, two F-7 fighter-bombers of the Air Force were scrambled to hit the enemy's armored equipment with smart bombs.

Besides, the force's fixed and mobile artillery units practiced hitting the enemy's positions with smart and precise shells with a range of 10 to 30 kilometers.

On Friday night, the airborne division of Iran's Army Ground Force carried out a nocturnal reconnaissance and combat mission as a part of a war game.

Commander of the Iranian Army Ground Force's Airborne Division, Yousef Qorbani, said that his forces have for the first time carried out a night reconnaissance mission and nocturnal combat with assault copters furnished with night-vision cameras.

During the operation, the Airborne Division's choppers detected the hypothetical enemy's positions and detonated the fixed and mobile ground targets with modified rockets and missiles, Qorbani was quoted as saying.

In April 2018, the Iranian Army Ground Force Airborne Division launched a program to equip all choppers with night-vision cameras to enhance aircraft capabilities in night missions.

On Friday, the soldiers from the artillery, armored unit, rapid-reaction forces, mechanized infantry, combat engineering, telecommunication and electronic warfare, and airborne unit were arrayed in the operation zone with the support of the Air Force fighter jets.

During the first stage of the exercise, the airborne unit's drones and choppers carried out a day-time reconnaissance mission before troops from the airborne brigade and rapid reaction brigade parachuted into the target zone.

Assessment of the power, mobility and agility of the troops as well as the aerial logistics of the airborne unit's copters were among the objectives of the first day of the maneuver.

Iran holds regular war games every year aimed at testing new hardware, enhancing the country's combat preparedness as well as demonstrating Iran's capabilities in the face of threats.