Navy Releases Video of Iran’s ‘Highly Provocative’ Rocket Shooting Near U.S. Vessels

The U.S. Navy has released a video it said shows Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats firing several unguided rockets near a U.S. aircraft carrier passing through the Strait of Hormuz last month.

The U.S. Central Command has described the Dec. 26 act as “highly provocative.” Besides the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman, the rockets were also fired near a U.S. destroyer and a French warship.

A Revolutionary Guard spokesman on Dec. 31 denied Iranian vessels had launched rockets, calling the accusation "false" and "akin to psychological warfare,” Reuters reported.

"The Guard's Navy had no drills in the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz and didn't fire missiles or rockets during the past week and the time claimed by the Americans," spokesman Gen. Ramezan Sharif said in a quote posted on the Revolutionary Guard’s website, the Navy Times reported.

The Navy released the 30-second black and white video captured by an American military helicopter in response to a Freedom of Information Act request on Saturday.

U.S. Central Command spokesman Cmdr. Kyle Raines said last month that the rockets passed about 1,500 yards from the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier, the USS Bulkeley destroyer and the FS Provence, a French frigate and that the live fire drill was announced on maritime radio only 23 minutes before shooting.

Raines called the action “highly provocative, unsafe, and unprofessional.”